PHOTO EDITING: How much is “too much” ?

Nowadays we have apps like Photo editor for Android and PC Softwares like Adobe Photoshop or Picasa that can be

used to change a boring lackluster picture into a top class professional photograph.

But that does bring up a vital question: How much editing is too much?

First, consider what is it that you would like to change and do ask yourself, “Am I changing the style of

the photo? Or am I changing the content?” These are two vastly different things.

Changing the style would include, say, recoloring someone’s T-shirt to match your background paper;

adjusting the hue, tone, temperature or color cast; maybe some creative cropping, background blurring

or selective coloring, to bring attention to a specific area of the image.

Changing the content of the image might include replacing a dull, gray sky with one that’s sunny and

blue with white fluffy clouds or adding something to an image that wasn’t part of the original like a bird

in the sky, for instance. Or maybe swapping heads to replace someone in a group shot whose eyes were

closed!!

Most pros agree that enhancing photos is perfectly acceptable. This is mainly because any digital

camera, no matter how expensive it was when you bought it, will have limitations. Digital image sensors

aren’t able to capture the full spectrum of contrast in a real-life scenario. That can affect the contrast

and brightness of an image.

 

Additionally, even if you carefully meter your pictures, there is still a good chance that the color can be

somewhat off. That means you need to use photo editing to enhance the picture so that it will look the

best it possibly can. The tools you can use to enhance, and that aren’t considered unethical by most

people include:

Brightness

Contrast

Color

If you talk to almost any expert on photography they will speak of how one can enhance their images to

some degree through color and contrast correction. As long as you are not changing the content of the

photo hardly anyone would consider it cheating in any way!!

 

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