EDIT YOUR STREET PHOTOS

Only a few simple editing steps are needed to enhance your captures

1

TAKE FEWER PHOTOS

To avoid reviewing hundreds of photos, decide if a photo is worth taking in the first place. If the scene doesn’t get you excited, it probably isn’t all that interesting. This will save you time later.

2

REVIEW WITH FRESH EYES

Once your photo walk is over, distance yourself from your images for a couple of days and see if they still appeal or not. This will help you self-critique your images in the long run.

3

ADJUST WHITE BALANCE

Sometimes images take on an orange or blue tint because the camera picked up the wrong colour temperature, depending on if you shot indoors or outdoors. This can easily be corrected with your editing software.

4

KEEP IT SIMPLE

When it is required, convert your colour images to black and white, do basic brightening or darkening, or contrast adjustments to bring out tones, whites and blacks. If keeping the image in colour, review and edit its vibrancy and saturation.

5

AVOID OVER-EDITING

Photos with heavy colour saturation, gimmicky filters, cliché spot colouring or HDR may look fun but are signs of over-editing. If you have captured a great street photo, it should not need any extra bells and whistles to attract a viewer’s attention.

6

CROP IN-CAMERA

It is good practice to crop ‘in-camera’ rather than in post editing software. This means zooming with your feet in situ and getting closer to the action. This will help you avoid cropping in post-processing which may affect the quality of the image.

7

WATCH YOUR HIGHLIGHTS

When shooting in harsh artificial light or sunlight, it’s recommended to underexpose your image. This will help you avoid any blown-out white highlighted areas, which may not be recoverable in editing.

8

ADD BLUR

Sometimes your decision to keep a photo is simply down to whether or not it has any distractions. Choose the most suitable Aperture value to show or blur out background context.