Lately I've been an editing machine and before I became a photographer I didn't necessarily understand what all that entailed. I would have Payton's picture taken when she was younger and wonder why in the world I couldn't have them right then and there! I could give you your images right out of the camera but truthfully, the power of digital enhancement is worth the wait! When you're paying for your sitting fee, my job doesn't end when our 1 hour session is over. When I get home, I take the images from my camera(s) and upload them to my computer. I then quickly sift through them to select the best shots from the session. I carefully weed out all photos that are blurry, where you may have closed your eyes, I get rid of any underexposed or over exposed images and then back all of the "good" images onto an external hard drive. All images I shoot come out of my camera in RAW format. That is it cannot be viewed by any normal web browser just like that. It must be converted to a more universal file type, the JPEG. EACH image must be converted. Now it's time to make some magic! I select my first photo for editing and open it.
This is an exact image from a recent session. Just as it came out of my camera after being converted. By the time I get to this step, I've likely spent about an hour sorting through the images.
The first thing I do is rotate the image because I just felt that the adorable subjects were better balanced at this angle. I also choose to crop this a tiny bit to put more focus on their faces. Next, because the shot was taken in a shady area, I adjust my white balance so that the colors are warmer and more natural. I experiment a while with different tweaks until I get it just right.
You may have noticed before in the above images that Cody (the silly boy) had some very boy like scratches along the left side of his face near his eye. I think they're cute and reveal something about that time in his life but sometimes Mom's don't really feel the same way. lol So I patch out that area so that it is smoother and looks like the scratch never happened. I also patch the small area under Maddy's (the baby) nose and on her cheek because she had a runny nose that showed up in some of the photos.
finally, I increased the vibrancy of the grass and brightened their cute little faces so they really pop! & this is the final image that you see in your gallery & prints!
But we don't stop there! When I crop & edit an image for your gallery, it's always in 4x6 format. So when you make your final selections and choose sizes larger (or smaller) than a 4x6, I must reopen the image and reformat it to the desired size. So as you can see I put hours into hunting for props & locations, an hour or more with fabulous YOU, then hours making fabulous you even MORE fabulous! So truth be told, you're paying for HOURS of work when you schedule a session for one low price! ;)
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