in one recent articles, I’ve shared a collection of easy-to-avoid photo editing mistakes. Today, it’s time for five more. Some of them sound obvious, while others are more subtle. They all have one thing in common: they can ruin another great edit.
Image conversion is too strong
Image transformations can be a great tool for making composition adjustments that you can’t do in the field. I have an article on this topic where I present techniques to Reduce distractions in an image. But I also want to note a word of caution: whenever you transform a photo, through perspective correction, scaling, warping, or other pixel-bending techniques, you affect the details of the image. image as well as the overall interface.
While the changes you apply can improve the overall look of the image, make the composition more pleasing to the eye, and reduce distractions, you can inadvertently spoil the finer details. I find that especially the vertical tool is problematic because of the way it transforms the image. It stretches and bends pixels to varying degrees, and you can distort details if you’re not careful. For example, perspective transformations are less of a problem because there is more uniformity in how pixels are affected.
Whatever tool you use, avoid drastic transitions and don’t delay checking your photo at 100% magnification. It will immediately let you know if you’ve gone too far with an edit.
Careless with difficult choices
Nowadays, it’s easy to make selections for different parts of an image. For example, thanks to AI, you can select the sky in a landscape photo with the touch of a button. It can be tempting to trust those tools and quickly resume editing. But that is a mistake, which can cause you a headache.
Whatever selection tool you use, the results will rarely be perfect right away. Most of the time, tweaking is needed to avoid artifacts as you make adjustments through those selections. For the example below, I was trying to select the sky using Photoshop’s built-in AI feature. That’s a good initial guess, but more work needs to be done.
In Photoshop, press “Q” to enter quick masking mode and zoom in 100% to check the selection. If you find mistakes, correct them using the “Select and Mask” panel, which you access by pressing “Cmd/Ctrl + Alt + R”. I show this in my article about better sky choice.
Another way to avoid problems with hard choices is to not use them in the first place. For many use cases, a luminosity mask is a better alternative.
Too much saturation in the dark
With the Pinnacles photo in Australia, I’m on the right track. The sunset that evening was one of the most colorful light shows I’ve seen in months. In the last photo, I wanted to show the fear I felt when I took it. That’s why I focus so much on color in the editing process. I want the image to be vivid, but not too realistic. It’s a constant back and forth between adding saturation in some areas and removing it from others.
Usually, when you add contrast to an image and darken it, you also affect saturation, usually increasing it. While this may be desirable in highlights and mid-tones, it is recommended to limit this effect to shadows. They are often already available in subtle blue or even magenta. If it becomes too strong, the resulting image will look less clear.
That doesn’t mean you should remove all the saturation from the shadows. You want some ambient light to reflect there. But checking dark areas often and reducing saturation through a brightness mask can help your photos look clearer.
Reflection is too bright
I see a lot of reflection errors in images that are brighter than reflected objects and that’s also a mistake I made. After I bought my first set GND . filter, my image contains water and other reflective surfaces that often have a darker sky than its reflection. Sometimes it can go unnoticed until someone points it out, and suddenly, you see how wrong those pictures look.
To avoid this mistake, regularly check the brightness of your reflector. If you use Photoshop, use the “Color Sampling Tool” to sample an area of the sky and its reflection. The “Info” panel will show you the colors of those samples, helping you ensure proper brightness. In Lightroom, you can use a different technique. Activate “Highlight Clipping” and temporarily increase the exposure of the photo. The sky will begin to cut earlier than its reflection.
Force editing
The creative part of photo editing should come naturally and not be a struggle. Over the years, editing tools have gotten better and better at helping you achieve whatever vision you have for your photography. If you are forced to edit towards the end result, you may be on the wrong track. It usually happens if you try to create a certain image that it is not.
Better to try to keep it true to the scene you captured. The pictures I hang on the wall in my apartment are the ones that show the scenes I remember them, not the ones that I’ve over-edited.
I admit that I also make a lot of changes to my photos. Reproducing the atmosphere inside 2D media often requires more color and contrast. Sometimes the layout needs tweaking through transformations. So I’m not a purist when it comes to editing.
But I also know if a photo isn’t there. If a scene I’ve taken is boring, there’s no point in forcing it in a way that makes it look interesting. I like to focus my time on images that mean something to me and try to get the best results possible for them.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t be creative in editing your photos. There are no rules here, and experimentation is a great thing. Take the example above: I was in this beautiful alley one morning. And at that time of year, you can have fog there if the conditions are right. I wasn’t so lucky and added it in post-processing. I even made a tutorial about it. In hindsight, it was a good exercise, but nothing more.
Conclusion
Photo editing can enhance your images and turn your creative visions into reality. However, you should be aware of the mistakes I share in this and previous article in this series. Many of them are technical and easy to avoid. It also helps to come up with your own list. If you already have, share some of the mistakes you see a lot with us in the comments section below.
