My Favorite "Before & After"s

So today I thought I would share a few of my favorite “Before and After” edits with you guys and try to talk a little about why I chose to share these particular ones or just why I chose to edit them the way that I did.

I tend to ramble when I’m talking about my work (or just in general if I’m being honest here) so I will try to keep things short and sweet! :)

This first image is of the newest addition to my growing menagerie (I have another cat, two horses, and a dog), Bob or as I like to call him, Bobert.

I was positioned on the floor with my back to the light source (my sliding glass door) while Bob sat perched on the arm of the couch. Before taking the image I already knew I wanted to do a high contrast edit. I’m a huge fan of the black background images that you typically see with Equine photography, so that’s what I wanted the final result to be here. And the reason I chose to share this one with you is because I've always enjoyed this style of editing pet portraits, but couldn't find the tutorials to help me achieve it. So this was done by playing around in Photoshop and figuring things out on my own. Which is how I tend to do a lot of my editing. lol

Now as far as the editing process goes, this was very easy to achieve! Turning the contrast up caused the background to darken significantly and Bob’s white coat and dark head markings to pop. But to make Bob an even more striking subject, I converted the image to Black and White. From there I just tweaked the brightness, whites, and blacks, and used the “Burn/Dodge” tool to make certain areas more defined, like his eyes.

Above, is an image from my very first maternity shoot in my photography career! This image was, what Bob Ross would call, “A happy accident”. The client wanted this particular tree in the background of one of the shots because she really liked the vibe of it. But no matter what direction I turned her around this tree, the background was distracting or the light wasn’t hitting her in a flattering angle and all of those factors didn’t give us the immediate gratification of the vision I feel we both had. But instead of throwing these shots out I decided to hold on to them in hopes that I could still make them work for us.

What ultimately caused me to hold on to these were the branches reaching into the frame, which added a whimsical (and somewhat creepy) feel to the image and I really loved it! But again, that background was a huge issue for me. So the first thing I decided to work on was removing anything distracting by using the “Clone Stamp” tool. Once I removed everything from the background, I decided to also remove that extra fabric on her dress coming from behind her hand beneath her belly. I just felt removing that one little detail would help to accentuate the baby bump and this was a maternity session after all.

The next decision I had to make was what kind of overall feel did I want the image to have. Deciding on a soft, vintage, and possibly whimsical theme, I then ran different Photoshop Actions and tweaked the settings of each until I achieved the vision I had for this in my mind!

This is probably the most dramatic B&A on this list and that's exactly why it's on the list! Sometimes you have to take a risk and make bold changes to get amazing results!

Lastly, we have an image from one of my favorite shoots to date! I've worked with this particular horse (King) for a little over three years now, so when I was asked by his owner to do a "Unicorn Shoot" with him, I don't think I could have answered "Yes!" any faster. lol.

To achieve the final image, I first removed the reins with the "Clone Stamp Tool" to get rid of the notion that there was someone there holding on to him. After that, I altered my light source behind King's horn by going to the "Filters" menu in Photoshop, scroll down to "Render", and then from that menu I selected "Lighting Effects". In that window I played around with the settings until I was able to get what I was looking for. I'm not going to bore you too much with the technicalities. I can always do blogs on those types of things later. ;)

So once I removed the distracting reins and got the lighting situated, I then ran a few Photoshop Actions over the image and tweaked the settings until I was satisfied. Being that this was an image of a Unicorn, I of course wanted the final result to reflect that. The pinkish tones and softer light of the actions I chose to use gave a "fairy tale" vibe that I really enjoyed! Then to finish it off I went over areas that I wanted to POP a little more with the "Burn/Dodge Tool"!

I am slightly embarrassed to admit this image is my iPhone's lock screen. I just love it THAT much!! And it still blows my mind that I created it.

And there you have it!

If there was anything I talked about that you would you want me to elaborate on or cover in a future blog post then just comment below or shoot me a message on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/indiantrailsphoto/