Before and After Samples

I've been wanting to do a post like this for a long time- and while I'm traversing around London and Ireland I thought I'd throw this up on the blog to tide ya'll over. It's a common misconception that the images we shoot in camera look as good as the images posted on the web galleries or the blog here. The images I shoot in camera look good but I'm not going to lie, I wouldn't say they look great. In general, all images are going to need contrast boosts, saturation help, and sharpening to be ready for print. Even when one shoots film, before an image is printed from a negative or scanned it goes through all of those same processes.

So, I want this post to show you the difference between a good image and a great one. Not all photographers work this way but this type of processing has played a huge part in defining my style-I happen to love manipulating images, playing with color tones, sharpness, and light qualities in post. It's important to understand, as a client, what an image looks like before it's been finished. Also, I always think it's fun to see other photographers before images too so I hope there is a little something in here for everyone!

Before are on the left or the top, depending on the orientation. Don't judge me too harshly- the befores are literally processed raw files, absolutely nothing has been done to them. I toyed with the idea of cheating- doing some general enhancement but in the end- it never hurts to be raw and honest and besides I don't think they look bad at all- just unfinished! ;)

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This is a bit more subtle but I think it makes all the difference.

 

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These next two are examples of how I play with color to enhance the general ambiance of the location.

 

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This is my favorite- while this church is absolutely beautiful inside and out- the lighting is a bit... troublesome. So what do we do? We finish the image, give it some mood some blur some contrast and fix it right up!

 

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Let me know if you enjoyed seeing these- maybe I'll do more of them in the future? xoxo, Gossip Girl... er... Meg