Photo editing is a powerful tool that allows you to transform your images in many ways, from enhancing the atmosphere in the photo to increasing the image quality. However, common editing mistakes can negatively impact the final result. In this article, we will explore five of them.
Relying on only one exposure
While it’s a good idea to aim to get the final result as close as possible to a single exposure, you shouldn’t limit yourself to it. If you are photographing landscapes, seascapes, and architecture, you should take more photos. Set your exposure values for highlights and shadows, and use focus stacking when your scene has a large depth of field. At the beach, take some pictures of the waves and combine them for a more dynamic result.
You can say that there is no need for exposure compensation with modern cameras. And for many scenes and use cases, you’re right. But if you want to make large prints of your photos, you will always get better results if you have more exposure for the shadows and highlights. The same is true for stacked focus. While you can get everything tolerably sharp using f/16 and the superfocal distance, a stack focus at f/8 or f/9.5 will give you outstanding results.
And don’t worry about space on your memory card when you’re in the field. Today, you can buy fast 128 GB SD Card for under $25. Such a card can hold more than 2,000 images in raw format, even from modern high-resolution cameras.
I usually take more photos than I use for the final edit. I delete the redundant images after post-processing so they don’t clutter up my hard drive. Sometimes, one exposure is enough, and that’s fine. But more often than not, I need more sharpness in the foreground and clearer details in the shadows. And it’s good to have more photos for that.
Pre-sharpen too much
For years, I made the following mistake: I applied pre-sharpening in Lightroom. Why is that a mistake? Sharpening amplifies the high frequency components of an image by adding contrast to its very fine details.
If you zoom in on contrasting edges like the horizon after applying sharpness, you’ll notice fine lines. Those are often hard to see at the pre-sharpening stage. But if you continue to add contrast, adjust colors, and apply filters afterwards, those changes will affect the sharpening components, making them quite prominent. To avoid the tedious work of cleaning them, move all sharpening to the end of your photo editing workflow.
If you still end up with sharp edges at the end of your edit, you can try the following if you’re using Photoshop: create an empty layer at the top of the layer stack and set its blend mode to “Make dark”. Select the “Clone Stamp Tool”, set it to the “All Layers” pattern and use it to duplicate the contours. It works well on the horizon, where you can sample from the nearby sky. Due to the “Darkening” mode, copying will not affect the foreground, which is usually darker than the sky.
Does not eliminate chromatic aberration
While sharpening should not be applied at the beginning of post-processing, other adjustments are important from the start. Eliminating chromatic aberration is one of them. Colorful fringing that appear at high-contrast edges in the outer areas of the image are easily removed during the raw transition. Don’t forget to do so because they can be a pain to deal with later.
However, there is a remedy called frequency separation. I show how to apply it in the video below.
Adding micro contrast too soon
Micro-contrast is a great tool for capturing the viewer’s attention. But don’t add it too soon. It can be tempting to use clarity and texture in tools like Lightroom. But if you do this, you will lose the opportunity to make more controlled adjustments later.
Take this photo I took 14 years ago at the Grand Canyon. As you can see, I added a lot of micro-contrast to make it look detailed and dramatic. But I applied those settings globally as well as early in the processing. While this looks nice in web resolution, it’s overwhelming in large print. Sometimes, a lighter touch can create a more interesting photo and retain more depth.
How much micro contrast you want to add and where depends on your preference. But don’t add it too soon. You’ll then have much more flexibility, and as with sharpness, you won’t change it through other adjustments afterwards.
Too dark to start
Dark and moody photos can be very appealing. Especially for photos taken on rainy and cold days, a darker edit will show the atmosphere better. But what you should try to avoid is to start editing too dark.
What do I mean? During the raw transition, aim for a brighter photo than the result you’re after. If you are using Photoshop for final editing, the original document should contain clear and detailed shadows. If necessary, use multiple exposures to achieve that.
If you start editing in Photoshop that’s too dark, you’ll have less room to play. The quality will degrade faster and it will be difficult to recover the details that you sacrificed in the preprocessing.
in one recent articlesI will present some techniques that you can apply to your images to create a moody look.
Conclusion
This is just a small selection of the mistakes that are easy to avoid. In an upcoming post, I’ll share five more with you. Reviewing them regularly helps hone your editing skills and prevent mistakes in your photos. What also helps avoid such errors is pixel peeping at various stages of the editing process. Try to strike a balance between focusing on the overall look of the image and the details. Then you will be able to achieve high-quality results.
