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Tips for Editing Wedding Photos (Guest post)

Bride and photographer looking at a camera
Wedding photography

Wedding photography is extremely fun, and it lets you apply your creative skillsĀ unrestrained. With the market brimming with amazing quality cameras, good photography comes easy even to those with basic skills and knowledge. However, if you want to create an impact with your clicks, proper photo editing is probably the way to go.

Just like photography, photo editing is an art itself. After you shoot a wedding, what you do with the photos is very important. Considering the huge number of pictures and the high expectations that are placed on the results, wedding photo editing can be creative and also wearisome at the same time.

A number of free, paid or online photo editing software are now easily available. Regardless of whatever software you choose, here are a few useful wedding photography editing tips that could help you come up with some incredible keepers.

Before and after editing of a wedding photograph
Before and after

Before you begin editing wedding photos

Photo editing often calls for working with large files. This may include copying the raw image files from the camera to your local computer, the editing process itself, and finally saving the edited files. It is important to backup images when working with photos.

ā€¢Ā Ā  Ā Have several backups, for example on external hard drives, DVDs, or network drives.
ā€¢Ā Ā  Ā Always edit only the duplicate copies that you have made of the images. Preserve the orig unless you're shooting in RAW.
ā€¢Ā Ā  Ā It is worth noting that for accurate photo prints, your monitor must also reproduce precise colors and shades.

For that artistic touch

Ā Wedding photos are meant to be classic and elegant. While you can experiment with modern techniques, make sure that you do not go overboard with the effects. Throwing in your creativity at the right place, and mixing and matching different styles can be very effective in producing breathtaking photographs.

The classic B&W: Grayscale has a charm of its own. Some cameras come with a black and white mode. However, converting color photographs to black and white during the editing process is known to give better results.

Soft focus: Soft focus effect adds a certain ethereal haze or halo element to crisp photographs. This can create a nice artistic touch to wedding pictures.

Dodge and burn: Dodging and burning lighten and darken different areas in a photograph to create an artistic yet natural look. For instance, shadows on the brides face can be softened by dodging while burning can intensify shadows to enhance focus on a subject.

Vignettes: This artistic effect that involves lightening or darkening the edges of a picture can draw a viewerā€™s attention into the photo.

Multiple exposures: You can experiment with traditional multiple exposure techniques to create contemporary styled photographs.

Cross processing: Cross processed photographs have both a color cast and a high contrast to them, and are growing more popular through magazine adverts. The unique style of cross processing has made it a preference in wedding photography.

Pop art: Go contemporary with a pop art wedding photograph. Pop art uses simple, bright blocks of colors contrary to blending effects. Photographs of people best suit the pop art style.

Color popping: Popping generally works well with wedding photographs and it emphasizes a colorful and bright part of an image. For instance, flowers can be a good choice for popping in wedding photography.

Good editing can help take your wedding photographs to a whole new level. If you know where to begin, wedding photo editing can be exciting and rewarding. So if it is a perfect wedding, then it is perfect pictures too!

Author Bio: Leah is a blogger and photography enthusiast. She loves writing photography and photo editing blogs atĀ wedding-retouching.com. She is keen in updating herself with advanced photo restoration and enhancement methods. She at present blogs for photo editing serviceĀ weedit.photos

28 thoughts on “Tips for Editing Wedding Photos (Guest post)”

  1. My comments were friendly and constructive feed back, but you deleted them???

    Great!

    Well removed from my favourite sites and unliked on facebook!

    Go you!

  2. Hi. How is it possible that you ‘reconstructed’ so much of that image after removing the unwanted person?

    I cannot see how you could have digitally removed that person and recreated all the detail required (dress, arm, veil, background) to complete the after edit shot.

    I’d love to know how you managed it.

    Cheers!

  3. I disagree somewhat with the initial statement that “good photography comes easily to those with even basic knowledge” due to the high-end cameras available. Good photography does not come from a camera, it comes from the person behind it- controlling all of it’s functions. The camera is merely a tool. And you do need a good tool to get good photos. A beginner may set their 5D Mark III on auto and get nothing but blah photos. A seasoned photographer may be shooting with a Rebel and get amazing photos.

    You should never rely on post-processing to rescue a photo that wasn’t so good in the first place, as it just won’t look right. Editing can improve a photo that just needed some adjustments, as well as add those creative touches.

    A lot of the creative touches mentioned here, in my opinion, should be used in moderation and as additional files to the clean edits. You don’t want to give the clients all vintage-style edits, which is a major trend. Give them clean edits plus several more creative edits. Spot-coloring is a trend on it’s way out (in my opinion, for good reason, as it detracts from portraits).

    I believe that first image would have been a composite. The photographer probably shot multiple images of that scene, and in this shot the bride’s face looked the best but some guy stepped into the frame. The photog could have combined two images. It’s really easy as long as the two are similar. There’s no way someone could have completely faked the right side of that photo. But the fake background softening usually does not work well, and creates halos. It’s best to shoot at a wider aperture to get that look.

  4. Has anyone tried hiring a student photographer for their wedding? I came across a photo editing site called Pictricks and I’m wondering if it’s worth saving on the actual photographer and then having the photos I love edited?

    [Link removed]

    Thanks!

  5. I have seen in most of the cases the post processing of wedding photography is done in a decent way. Nothing overly edited images are expected at all and need to be aware of the fact that natural look should be intact. The adjustments of brightness is mostly done in editing wedding photos.Some important points has been sorted out here, thanks.

  6. I realize editing weeding photography is really challenging. Naturally, we have more expectation out of our weeding photography. So, it becomes quite complex for a photo retouching specialist to satisfy the customer easily. However, this article seems really useful to satisfy the weeding couples with their weeding shots by editing the images according to the mentioned advice. Thank You so much for sharing the article.

  7. Thanks for nice article about photo editing. With years of experience in digital photo manipulation software, my services are top quality. Ranging from basic color and contrast adjustments to advanced retouching, editing and restoration, I am able to take on any Photoshop challenge with stunning result. My skills include but are not limited to skin retouching, facial enhancements, acne and blemish removal, posture correction, background extraction or replacement, adding or subtracting elements from photos, eye color correction and flash glare wedding album corrected, donā€™t hesitate to buy my gigs and leave your worries behind. Though Iā€™ve worked on some rather challenging projects over time, not once have I had one unsatisfied customer.

  8. I think the work done retouching the above wedding shot is extreme and very well executed. To rebuild what I would suggest is about 25% off a photograph and make it look seamless is a really great job. On top of which the tips excellent and very relevant.

  9. Well, great article about wedding photography and tips. I am searching for this type of blog for a long time. Now I got what I want. Bookmark it already. Thanks.

  10. Wedding photography editing tips are very important for photographer and these tips are more important for professional photographer .Love these tips here .

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