Editing: Before & After!

I love how every photographer has a different way of editing photos. Straight out of camera (SOOC), images probably don't look all that different from photographer to photographer, yet the end result can and does vary so much. 

I personally like to enhance the colors and contrast (to name a few) of an image when editing, but strive to maintain an end product that doesn't look too "touched up." Yes, you can tell when comparing the edited image to the SOOC image that some work has been done, but I don't think the end result in itself is highly stylized or edited looking. I do 95% of my editing in Lightroom, and when I'm doing portraits (like these ones below of Rachel) I'll also open the image in Photoshop to do some light skin touch-ups. Sometime in the future I'll share a little more about the specific process- I have been sitting at my computer for entirely too long today and don't think I should go into too much more detail to avoid mental coma!

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous showing these! It's makes me feel vulnerable to reveal the image as it was SOOC, and then compare it to how I chose to edit it, because someone else could have done a number of things differently and ended up with an entirely different finished product. But, I'll be brave and post! I've found that the edits I do to images make for beautiful prints, especially when clients choose to print through me, because I have access to an amazing lab. AND, because I'm a STICKLER about things being in focus... they really come to life when they're made into larger prints (8x10 and up). Thanks for letting me use you as an example, Rachel! Enjoy :)