This will take you back to the Photography Main Page
Editing: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_editing & please be sure to read the entire article & the notes at the end carefully.
Photographically – Be known and admired for what you really look like and NOT what the photographers think you should look like with their editing! Otherwise it is an INSULT to YOU, INSULT to the MUA, INSULT to the STYLIST, INSULT to the HAIR STYLIST etc! So why do you pay them to make you look like something your not – effectively stating that you are not beautiful as you are – This is also just my personal opinion!
In Summary: When we say 100% Unedited – 100 % Uncropped – The editing we refer to involves ANY CHANGE to the image post photography – be it – red eye removal, adjusting contrast and brightness, dropping from colour to B&W etc when not shot in Monochrome etc, including cropping, changes to contrast and brightness, exposure, hue, saturation, highlights, shadows, colour, tone, grain, gamma correction, color depth correction, selective color filtering, layering, object removal, adding, air brushing, blurring skin, blurring / changing background, perspective control (pinching / stretching images etc), Merging images, sharpening / softening (parts of image – like the eye or whole image) images, special effects, slicing images, cropping and much more … This is all editing … These aspects are sadly practiced by many who compromise on taking a good photograph .. and resort to these techniques – then claim their Digital Art as Photography! See – Editing: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_editing
1) Once edited: It is then Digital Art and no longer a photograph – in our opinion – and therefore should NOT be claimed to be a photograph! What took years in the film era to learn and perfect can now be done digitally, within seconds in some cases with a few sliders! In some cases with NO NEED to even understand what these sliders do, you can just have a play and when you like the results, save and export the file as a .JPG!
2) Once edited: Depending on the how it was edited – you will probably NOT be able to print it to the full size of the original image (Due to the poor quality of editing and also as the whole image may have been reduced in size too) and in most cases (simply speaking), you will NOT even be able to print it to even A4 / A3 size – without the flaws in the so called editing being visible in both scenarios! More often than not – these edited images may ONLY be good for Facebook / Instagram etc or printing to a size of A4 or less – at best!
3) When your friends say your pics look nothing like you – then you probably should know FOR SURE that you have most probably wasted your money and time and been insulted by the Photographers!
4) So why waste your money and time and getting such a useless and worthless job done? So you can display it on Facebook for some comments? Ummm … think again about edited images and their actual value to you in the real world – outside of facebook!
5) There has been a significant upsurge in the use of terms like RAW Image and Unedited Image in images published by Photographers and Models on Facebook & other mediums. RAW is a image format – like a Digital Negative – not publishable on places like Facebook (At the time of writing as far as we are aware). The use of the term ‘Unedited‘ and ‘RAW‘ are used to suggest that the image has not been edited (But what is the Photographers, Models, Publishers interpretation of unedited – I am sure they are all probably different for each person!). Is it being used to falsely imply the image is 100 % unedited? – but why then is it not stated as 100 % unedited and a definition of such associated with it? This could be because the image has been adjusted for contrast, brightness, tone & saturation etc and may be even cropped (and may be more) – and calling it unedited / RAW simply because the model has not been airbrushed (or or similar) or one of many other combinations of editing carried out or not on it and then incorrectly classified as RAW or Unedited. Is it to simply mislead? Who knows! This is why we point to a very detailed explanation of what what what we do / do not do and why.
Cropping:
1) For example – when a full body shot is taken and then 1/2 the face and and some background is cropped to form the final image – it is about 10% to 20 % of the full image size – so when you go to print you are limited to how big you can print etc. If, however, the orginal photo was taken of only 1/2 your face and some background – then it can be printed to the full size of the original image! Much more useful!
2) I know of some photographers that have taken one orginal image and cropped it 3 or more different ways to present 3 images to the client (When it fact it is all from the ONE image) – Feel ripped off? You should be! Even worse when they claim it as counting towards your 4 or 5 edited images! Not good!
MODELS – When your portfolio is shown to a client or agency – You want them to look at you and say – yes – that is you – NOT – Gorgeous photo – OMG … how much work has she had done to the images! Clients / Agencies are NOT STUPID – they WILL realise the work gone into editing your images and would probably PREFER to use some one that LOOKS MORE LIKE their PORTFOLIO in REAL LIFE – Because they can know what the images of your shoot are likely to turn out like. NOT LOOK LIKE SOME mannequin, wax work figure, clown image, avatar or look like you have had wax poured on face and smudged / blurred or coloured in with a crayon! Your portfolio images should REFLECT YOU & look LIKE YOU & NOT what the Photographer/Digital Editor wants you to look like!
CASTING CALLS – ASK YOU TO SUPPLY UNEDITED IMAGES – then the photographer supplies you with edited images (what casting call can you then submit those edited images for?) – Photographers are not stupid – they (most) WILL NOT CAST YOU BASED ON EDITED IMAGES! So why accept edited images for your work – that will not be able to use in some potential casting in the future? Worse still the editing may so poor that that a post card or A4 size may be the biggest you can print to without distortion, or worse still be only able to use on the web / digitally and the list goes on!
You are naturally beautiful – be strong and proud of that – get the photographer that can see and capture the beauty that is you!
There is a place for editing!
1 – But I do NOT believe it is in a Model’s Portfolio Images!
2 – For me it – editing is where you want to sell not yourself as yourself – but an image or product or service – enhanced and made appealing to market and promote! Landscape and Real Estate are other examples.
3 – Where circumstances on the shoot made it near impossible to get it right or to correct accidental mistakes or to create an appealing image that the photographers have failed / been unable to create through photography or to compensate for a lack of photographic skill (the latter 2 reasons are most often the reason for editing I have discovered in my limited and personal experience of work produced by others).
An Example of Editing a ‘Digital Photograph’ to Create ‘Digital Art’.
- Photography + Digital Art – by BK @ The Shed Studios
**Note:
Camera’s like the Canon 1DX shoot and capture the image in color in a RAW format (.CR2 File Format) – I try and match the JPG color appearance and apply to the RAW format images to get back to BW / Monochrome – as I shot it. I do not consider this editing as I shot it in Monochrome / BW or what ever setting. Similarly with Sepia and other tone settings. Sometimes these tone settings not perfectly matched post photography (For better or worse) – but essentially still the same. All we then do (when unedited) is simply export the image using Lightroom (or what ever product we choose to use) as a .JPG or what ever chosen file format the image is required in – some times there are unintentional slight distortions / changes by the applications – these are also beyond our control and not introduced by us – in very simple terms). In addition to this lens and camera profile corrections that may need to be introduced also – this varies in how it works from one application to another – again beyond our control.
99.99 % of our images are taken on FULL MANUAL camera settings with MANUAL White Balance, ISO, Shutter Speed & Aperture (and other) settings – with Auto Focus and Image Stabilisation’s (Lens Functions) enabled only – some times not even that.
There may be errors contained in this note – this is not intentional however we ask you to not act on this information and to research and come to your own independent conclusions on this subject matter.
Last edited / corrected / added to – 20120613-1800 by BK @ The Shed Studios
