Photography and Photoshop go hand in hand. For the general public Photoshop elicits the feelings of frustration and false beauty standards. Photoshop get's such a bad wrap. I am a firm believer that we are perfect as we are, and I LOVE Photoshop. Being able to navigate editing software is a huge part of my business and a process I really enjoy. . . However - I do not use Photoshop to nip+tuck. I do not use Photoshop to enlarge features. I do not use Photoshop to airbrush clients to 'perfection'. None of these are my style. None of these fit into my moral compass. (I will, however, use Photoshop to remove a stray pimple that arrived the day of a shoot or a scraped knee or a hair that blew up with the wind etc). I've included before and after images I've created and explained how Photoshop helped me get the end result.
I also want to add that I take pride in hand editing all of my sessions. I do not use presets or actions (pre-made filters). I pour my heart into my images and find manually editing them a very important part of the art process (for me). Like painting, only on the compter ;)
Removing People / Objects
It's no secret that our little town is growing, growing! And sometimes that means the locations we're shooting at are packed. I try to dodge other people and shoot around them, but sometimes sweet moments happen and people just happen to be in the way. Insert Photoshop. Removing people, or other random objects like a bright beach bucket, from your images makes them far more powerful and less distracting. Sometimes the 'object' is a mosquito bite on your daughters cheek or a stain on a dress. Photoshop is great for all of these things.
Monochrome
It's no secret that I LOVE black and white images. I've been going through a color phase this past year but black and whites are my favorite. Creating a strong black and white image is not as simple as de-saturating an image or clicking the 'black and white' tab on an editing program. You have to understand lighting in creating a black and white image, as much if not more, than you do when creating a color image.
Lighting
This is the most common thing I am adjusting in photoshop. I shoot in RAW - which in short means I have to 'develop' my images manually. I have to sharpen them, adjust the color, the exposure, enhance them etc. RAW files also preserve substantially more detail than JPEG allowing me to restore more details. It's also why I never show the back of my camera at sessions. When I'm shooting the image on the left is what it on the back of my camera. But I've been doing this long enough that my eyes see the adjustments and image on the right before I've even edited it. Showing the image on the left feels like being caught outside naked "wait I'm not ready yet!".
