APPLY FINISHING TOUCHES
Edit your images to perfection to retain impact after a first glance
Impact in a photograph not only comes from the subject and how it has been handled, but in the way the final image is presented. It’s a bit like chocolate – if the chocolate has lots of fancy paper and ribbon wrapping it up, the ‘impact’ is much greater than a family block purchased at the local supermarket!
So how do we wrap up our photographs to maximise impact? Some photographers look at introducing filter effects, texture screens and fancy borders. These can work, but the trend these days seems to be away from the quick digital fixes. The majority of photographers prefer a purer approach to their work, even if digital techniques are required to achieve the result. However, the choice is always yours.
One of the easiest ways to add impact is to remove unwanted elements within the frame – and this means cropping. While there is an art to filling the viewfinder with perfect content, there’s no rule that says you can’t design a photograph with a different or non-standard ratio frame. Maybe a square would look better than a 2:3 rectangle, or perhaps you’d like to create a 16:9 panorama?
Within the image you can apply a myriad of subtle adjustments. For instance, warming up the foreground colour balance and cooling down the background can enhance a feeling of depth. Desaturating the colours around your subject (rather than adding colour saturation), can help your subject stand out and provide more impact. And as we’ve seen earlier, ‘tonal mapping’ or selective editing is fundamental to our editing process.
To finish, undertake some image sharpening (not too much, however). You might like to add a little creative noise or ‘grain’, and maybe a subtle black border can help your photograph stand out from the screen or print – all in the interests of extra impact.
DP