Editing & Coloring | Wedding & Portrait Photography Image Guide

Lindsey & Mike (bless their hearts!) helped me to create this little demonstration post.  It's so much easier to convey the kind of changes and improvements I make to an image by showing rather than telling.  (If you'd like to see Lindsey & Mike in all their glory, their wedding post is HERE.)

 It can be difficult to explain the difference between an untouched (aka RAW or straight-from-the-camera) image versus a lightly edited (aka color corrected) one versus a finalized (aka enhanced) one.  Here are the three stages: RAW, lightly edited, and finalized.  The finalized version has no marks on the wall and floor, blemishes or stray hairs, with brightened and softened eyes, etc.

This little guide shows our different coloring options.  I keep it pretty simple and straight forward, so your images stand the test of time and not fall out of fashion.  Here is the same image in brown tones, color, and black and white.  Everything is shot in color, so the monochrome options are part of the finalization of an image.

Sometimes an image just compels me to make it black and white or brown toned (not quite Sepia), so I usually choose which images to convert (because I shoot everything in color, no change is permanent and you always have an option).


And finally, just some fun shots of these two: