As a professional freelance corporate and event photographer working in Edinburgh and around Scotland, I am constantly asked the question as to how much is acceptable to edit an image. Like all complex questions, the answer is not black and white and every photographer has different levels of acceptability on this issue. I myself am a minimal editor for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I believe you should try and get it right first time when you take the photo. As an event photographer following a conference photography commission, as time is money, I don’t want to be spending all day on the computer, I want to be out there taking photos on location. Also if you are going through hundreds of images, you simply don’t have the time to edit them all. Most photos could maybe benefit from a crop, lighten or darken, possible straighten the horizon if necessary, or convert to black and white. Of course, as an infrared photographer, I need to do some minimum editing to convert the digital infrared image to an acceptable photo and then maybe work a bit with the colour and dynamic range, but infrared is a unique art form and for the purposes of this blog, we will stick to conventional photography. of course it is good to work on an image to bring out the tonal balance and other aspects of the photo, but we don’t want to overdo it. I do not like to see a body shape changed, nor do I think it is acceptable to make too many changes to the subjects face in portrait photography, as you are changing the whole person and it no longer becomes a photo. Finally,too much editing in landscape and architecture photography annoys me and I do not like to see composite skies replacing the original ones, when this is done, it is no longer a photo and it becomes purely a digital creation. A photograph has to be a snapshot of that time and place and not some alien outer space creation. Anyway, that is my rant for the week, it’s only my opinion and you will have your own.
Until next time.
www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk
www.edinburghphotographer.com
