D2

Applying Editing Techniques

In this report, I will explain the process of my editing and what effects I applied to my photographs to enhance the visual impact of my photographs for my portfolio. With each photograph, I will explain the processes I went through to edit them, explaining what edits I made and why, and how it meets the client brief. I will also be presenting before and after images to show the difference between the raw photograph and the edited version.

In the screenshots above, you can see the unedited version, evidence of making the edits and then the final product. For this image, I experimented with how I could make it look nostalgic and dream-like. To do this, I lowered the contrast and the highlights to make it look softer, and then I emphasized the shadows to make the details more prominent.

In terms of this photograph, I followed and applied a similar process from before, but I attempted a different style. Considering that the photo was already quite dark, I decided to scale up the brightness and and turning the contrast down really low for that soft, nostalgic effect.

In the photographs above, you can again see the before and after images showing the edits and one without the edits. Considering that this photograph was also relatively dark, I decided to play with the lighting and using the highlights in the background to my advantage. I increased the intensity of the shadows, so that the highlights were more noticeable and strong.

With the photograph above, I was already generally happy with the way the lighting looked, so I did not make any major changes. I just applied edits to where I saw it necessary to improve the quality of the photograph. I followed a similar process from the photograph before to achieve a similar style. I again, turned down the highlights slider to make the shadows more noticeable.

In the edits above, I only made very subtle changes because I was quite happy with the lighting. The only major change I made was adjusting the contrast slider to make the photograph a bit more softer.

In the edits above, you can clearly see a distinct change in style. I believe this is because beforehand, I was merely just experimenting and finding a style that I liked to stick with. In the end, I decided to edit a few more photos in this soft and dream-like style. To achieve this, I turned the contrast slider down to make the photo really soft-looking, and then I decreased the amount of shadows by turning the shadow slider all the way up to the opposite end. The red highlighted area you can see in one of the screenshots above is a mask I created with the brush mask tool. I did this so that I could achieve an even softer and mistier background to make it look nostalgic and liminal.

For this photographic edit, I followed the exact same process as the photo edit from before. I applied the exact same effects, only adjusting the "amount" slider a bit for variation. I also applied the same effect before, which was making a mask with the brush tool and then editing the background for the dream-like and blurry effect.

Again, similarly to before, I copied the same effects from before for the soft and dream-like atmosphere. I think that these effects fit this photograph the best because of the intensity of the shadows in the original image. I believe that these edits have made the photograph appear warmer and nice in the sense that it comes across as friendly or welcoming.

For this photographic edit, I wanted to focus on how I could improve the shadows by making them less intense. To do this, I copied the settings from before for the general edit and then increased the shadow slider so that they were less striking. Considering that there is a lot of background in this photo, I applied the brush mask to it to adjust the texture sliders and making it slightly more blurry.

I wanted to increase the intensity of the highlights when editing this photograph, so I slightly increased the highlight slider along with the whites slider. Increasing the whites slider gave the photograph the illusion that the blossoms were glowing slightly, and this was exactly the surreal effect I was going for.

Although the screenshots above present a different style of composition, I wanted to include a photograph that demonstrated my ability to control and adjust camera settings accordingly to capture a subject in motion. The other images only show blossoms and flowers on trees that were mostly static and were occasionally moved by the wind, but the image above contains rose petals falling from a height and with speed. When adjusting the settings on the camera, I ensured that it was on the highest shutter speed (1/2000) to capture the petals with no motion blur while they were falling.

In terms of editing techniques applied to improve the overall quality of the photograph, I began by cropping the image so that the petals were the main focus in the frame. I also used the spot healing tool on the blue object that can be seen in the original photo to draw the attention away from the object as it did not blend well with the green, leaf background. After making this adjustments, I then began to adjust the lighting on the photograph: the contrast slider was kept down low once again for the soft appearance, and I scaled up the shadows to create more depth in the photo.

In conclusion, I am generally quite happy with the final products, however, for next time to improve I should consider the client brief more mindfully and then choosing a specific editing theme afterwards. Although the edits on these photographs were generally successful, some of theme out of place and out of theme compared to others. I was also able to demonstrate my understanding of movement in a photograph by adjusting the shutter speed and camera settings during the photoshoot. Apart from the negatives, I believe that I have created a strong photoshoot portfolio overall.