Learn to edit your shots

Discover how to maintain a consistent style in post

editing your photos is just as important as the actual taking of the imagery during the concert. Being skilled at fine-tuning your captures will help you to create professionallooking imagery and can also be a saviour if your shoot didn’t go as planned. Always shoot in rAW so that you can take your edits further if the gig hasn’t gone your way.

if more than one photographer is shooting the gig you are at, then you might end up with very similar images, and this is when having a unique and distinguishable editing style can help make your images stand out. having a consistent style will also enable you to create a set of images that flow and work well together. sometimes the lighting during a gig can change dramatically and images at the beginning may look completely different from those later on, so again this is when having a specific stand-out style of postproduction is important.

higgs says that, “Different music photographers have different editing styles, but personally, i like my images to look crisp and to be vivid in colour. After importing my files into Lightroom, i’ll normally begin by lifting a photo’s shadows slightly and darkening its Blacks, before increasing both Vibrancy and clarity in order to make the scene really pop. generally speaking, i won’t reduce isO noise much, as i’d rather have a little bit of grain in my photos and clear details, than the soft and waxy look that can sometimes be produced by overusing noise reduction.” experiment with different edits. tweak the same image in a number of different ways to work out your personal style.

in both photoshop and Lightroom the most basic of sliders like exposure and White Balance can actually be the most important. spend time with these and experiment – alter the colour temperature until you reach the effect you want. it is important to remember that the white balance will also account for the coloured lights from the stage. Make sure that you adjust the white balance so colours remain realistic – keep a close eye on something natural in the image like skin tone or hair while still making use of the dramatic colours in the set lighting. exposure is important too as it changes the amount of light in the photograph.