Miraz asked:
Q. “What makes you decide the color composition for a particular photograph? Is it just trial and error? Do you convert all pics to B&W or Sepia to see how they look? How can you tell ?”
A. I really love this question. It’s something I wondered about other photographers for ages but never even thought to ask them. I still don’t know how everyone else does it (please comment below and discuss your methods!)
I once wrote a post called “How I Choose a Look for my Photos“. Pretty self explanatory in the title! But as I read over that post from back in Feb, I’d like to add the following:
It’s really easy to over-process your photographs. Some call for texturising, presetting, actioning and a complete overhaul to make it into something so much more than just a picture. But sometimes, a photo speaks for itself. I have to fight fight FIGHT (literally sit on my clicking finger) to stop myself from ruining some shots which are pretty near perfect SOOC (straight out of the camera). Take this for instance:
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I took this out of the camera. Even the natural vignetting from the lens was too good to be true. I applied a little colour boost from MCP Actions ‘soft colour’ action and left it alone to speak for itself. Yes, I started to overdo it, but thank heavens for the undo button!
A photo from this week which I was really conflicted about was this beautiful snap of my son which I didn’t plan. I just happened to be putting my camera in the car and he happened to be standing there looking amazing. I even took it in auto – shh don’t tell.
This was my first time playing with MCP Actions’ ‘Quickie Collection’ which offers such a beautiful, no-brainer workflow. I’ve always shied away from these types of actions because I felt that they didn’t ‘do anything’. What I meant was they didn’t edit the heck out of my photos to all oblivion. I had to confront my addiction to vintage and jut trust that some of my photos are better off left alone with minimal changes. You should def take a minute to be mesmerised by MCP’s video to show you how this set works to help guide you through your workflow if you don’t know what direction to take with your photo.
If you don’t tend to use actions or presets and are new to the editing process, you can just start by adjusting the brightness of your photo, the saturation, shadows, highlights, etc. Before I clicked the underexposed corrector in the actions set, I had no idea how dark my photo really was – you have to try it to see what happens. The same with the sharpening action ‘crackle’. I had no idea how dull the edges actually were before I enhanced the sharpness.
THANKS FOR YOUR QUESTION! AND DON’T Y’ALL FORGET TO KEEP SENDING ME YOUR QUESTIONS. EH@ELIZABETHHALFORD.COM
