Confession: I edit my photos
During my run on Saturday with Erin I was telling her how it bothers me that the path is so beautiful, and the trees so vibrant, yet I can’t capture it on camera.
Here is an example of a photo my camera took on Saturday:
Kind of drab, right? Here is what it really looked like:
There is a part of the Des Plaines River Trail where it curves (if you are headed north) to go along Route 60 and all of a sudden you are surrounded by these tall, skinny trees. And when we ran through it, it was a beautiful sea of bright orange and yellow. It was amazing. But you could never tell from the first photo. It looks so blah.
Here is another example. It was a bit overcast, but the trail did not look like this:
It looked like this!
Subtle difference, but I want you all to see what I am seeing. Not what the camera captures. And I am pretty sure that if I had a nicer camera and was not running while taking photos, it may actually capture things as they are, but for now, I edit.
Some times I have to edit photos of myself too. I might take a photo like this:
and remove that GROSS ZIT, EWWWW!!!
In this case, I am not editing it so you can see what the camera sees… I am sparing you from my gross zits (I have one right there now too – wah).
And in this photo, I would actually cut my arm off, and re-position it to make it look like I was standing there with my left arm at my side.
Just kidding! I am not going to lie about WHO I am – you can always count on me to take plenty of goofy photos to share with you. Like this one, when we were in my dad’s speedboat and decided to open our mouths and see what would happen (because of all of the wind):
But that is edited! Here it is before:
I like to add some “punch” and contrast to my photos.
Do you edit your photos before sharing them (either sharing them on your site or by any other means)? Do you take a TON of photos?
On some runs, I may take over 50 photos. I think I took over 125 at the corn maze run. I like to have a lot of options for editing! And sometimes random snapshots turn out really neat.
You guys can tell I edit my photos, right? Or could you not see the difference here?
I always feel like it is obvious when I am done working on them.
Themocracy
I up the color on some of my photos, too. I don’t think it makes them less “true” – in most cases they look more like they do in real life!
I would never have known that you edit your pictures! I just thought you had a good camera that captured the colors and good lighting! I will have to try changing the color on some of my photos! If I can figure it out…lol
I didn’t pay close enough attention to realize you were editing your photos! haha.
I didn’t always edit my photos… but ever since I bought my DSLR and was taught a little about how to color correct my photos, I now tend to at least consider editing all my photos- even with my point and shoot. I agree with you that sometimes you can’t capture the colors the way you see them in real life without editing (or knowing which settings to use on your DSLR).
Also- I love the photo of you on the boat! haha. Watch out for bugs!
Love your new banner – it has been a bit since i’ve clicked over to comment! 🙂 i like your photo edits! 🙂
Thank you!
You are just correcting color imbalances. 🙂 And blemishes.
I love all your photos. I was just thinking I wish I had more on my blog to spice it up. But my camera is kind of a pain to get pictures off of (I have to take out the memory card), and a lot of times I forget to charge it. Do you have a system for keeping your camera charged and offloading photos to your computer?
Aww, thank you! We have a Canon Elph that I can just plug in to the computer to download pics. I usually take pictures every day, so I download every night. I put them in folders by date and then label them by what was going on (“run,” “data” “thai food” etc.). I just use the automatic windows program to download them. And I leave the camera charger downstairs by the camera so I remember to charge it once every week or two. 🙂
Honestly, I had no idea you edited your photos!!! As silly as that may sound!!! Um, I don’t edit my photos, as you can probably tell!!! 🙂
=^..^=
LOL! You should take some pics of the kittehs to share with us on your blog!
I take tons of photos. Too many photos!
Ever since I got my Nikon D-90, I do a lot less editing, preferring to just post my photos as they come out of the camera. This is made easier thanks to the “color vivid” and “active D-llighting” modes, which fix a multitude of common problems that make photos look washed-out and boring.
HOWEVER, I learned a long time ago to NOT post photos of people un-processed. This only serves to make most people upset, and so I pass any people photos through a filter I bought specifically to diminish all the little flaws that we never want to admit we have! It’s such a habit now that I don’t even think about it.
Do you have an action set up in Photoshop to do those edits or do you use something else?
I correct all my zits whenever possible!!!!
I edit all of my photos too – usually just a quick color and contrast adjustment. I tend to take a lot of photos too. The more you take, the better chances you have of one working out.
I had no idea you were editing your photos (you can tell in the before/after, of course); like others above, I thought it was just a good camera/photographer.
I don’t edit my photos (other than maybe a crop here or there)…I am really impressed with your color correction skills though. I would really like to “oomph” some of my Alaska photos. What software do you use?
I used Adobe Photoshop. A good, free online program is picnik. It does not require a log-in and is user friendly!
I love your editing – it isn’t obvious that you did anything, until you complare it to the original.
Did you take a class in photoshop, or did you just figure it out on your own?
(my husband, btw, is insanely jealous of your Darth halloween goodybag)
Thanks! I figured out Photoshop on my own. I started using it in college in 2003.
Ha! I have a Darth Vader cookie jar at home and I think I have one of these buckets already too 🙂
What software do you use? I do it sometimes, but since I don’t have any fancy shmancy program, I just use the windows crap.
I use Adobe Photoshop. Picnik is a really good free online service though! I use that sometimes.
oh i DEFINITLEY edit mine!! i adjust color/contrast on nearly all photos (especially if taken outdoors) because i’m not a savvy enough photographer to adjust the white balance manually to get the colors to pop the way they do in real life. correcting light / color is just making the photo more accurately represent what my eye saw, as far as i’m concerned 🙂
I enhance colors and remove zits. Those are the only real edits I do. Okay okay, sometimes I remove the shine from my face too!
What do you do to remove shine? I need to learn that trick!
First of all, I always get zits on that exact spot on my chin! Anyway, I’m always disappointed that the camera doesn’t really capture what I see that well. I’m kind of lazy with taking pictures and I would definitely be lazy with editing them. It is interesting how much the scenery pictures are enhanced with your editing! My sister is really into photography and it’s pretty crazy what editing can do.
Photo editing always seems so overwhelming to me! You do a great job with it that I would never know you changed anything.
Thanks Erin! 🙂
Wow, look at those trees, look at those leaves. Alas, here in the desert we don’t get such things. Shame.
Ha, your editing is good! Mine always looks weird, so I don’t put in the effort.
It’s funny, I usually don’t care about anything in my photos except looking “fat.” Does that make me a bad person?
I’m glad you take goofy photos too! It makes blog-reading so much more enjoyable.
I think everyone doesn’t want to look fat in photos… or have photos out of them where they think they look fat. I know I don’t!
I edit my photos but I have yet to learn how to photoshop out a blemish. Must learn that skill!
Interesting!!! I 100% had NO idea. Probably because I rarely edit mine. The most I’ll ever do is crop them and zoom in so whatever I am taking a picture of shows up well.
Of course, now I’m always going to think to myself “hmmm, these colors look bright… I wonder if it was ‘enhanced’?”