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Basics for photographers: how to edit wedding photos


The wedding photos remind their heroes and other people how this day passed. Looking at the samples, we will help to refresh your memories about post production.


Reporting on the day of marriage is for the newlyweds a historical document of “creating a family”. It brings them back to the day that happens only once in life.

This is a living memory of the important events of life. Therefore, wedding photos for people holds sentimental value and they are kept carefully. The photos remind their heroes and other people how this day passed. Looking at the pictures, we will help to refresh your memories in memory.

Modern photographic equipment allows us to work very quickly. Usually the exposure is set by the camera's automaticity, and in most cases the images are of high quality. And the art of the photographer is to intervene in events only when it is needed. To do this, you need to know some pre wedding photo editing tutorials.

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Undoubtedly, an experienced photographer has certain knowledge and experience in setting up the exposition. But he needs to think about what the maximum exposure should be if he is going to take a sharp photo, working without tripod; for this, photographers in advance study pre wedding photo editing tutorials, in order to quickly navigate on the place.

The work of a wedding photographer is not a simple occupation, requiring great professionalism and experience. It is from his skill and imagination that this solemn event will remain in memory. Beautiful wedding photos people keep their whole lives, review, and remember happy moments, show children and grandchildren. Therefore, the big responsibility for the quality and content of the pictures falls on the shoulders of the wedding photographer, and he must have a clear idea of how to properly photograph weddings.

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Working with people also plays an important role for the photographer. When performing wedding photography, you do not necessarily enter into direct contact with the people you photograph. However, during outdoor photography, this happens quite often. The possibility of introducing an element of directing in photographing on the nature is much broader than, for example, in a church where those who hold a service manage organizational moments.

Organization and Directing: Schedule of photographer’s wedding day 

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To start photographing a wedding you need to have a certain amount of knowledge, that is, to have an idea of the basics of the photo gallery and to be able to use professional photographic equipment. Without this knowledge, nothing happens. The wedding photographer should be able to work in different styles and genres, know how to shoot portraits, group, staged, reportage photos. And importantly, the photographer must have sufficient skills in terms of processing and know how to edit wedding photos in Photoshop.

Photographing weddings is a very important matter, because the photographer does not have the right to make mistakes, and the opportunity to retake the event too. It is best to take a stab at the wedding of your friends or relatives, where you will be invited as a guest. Observe how professionals work in practice. Give yourself a try – do you have enough experience, the necessary knowledge and endurance. Try to get a free apprentice to a wedding photographer and help him, and you will learn how to photograph weddings, and then how to edit wedding photos.  

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Because of the tension of work, it often happens that an amateur photographer during a photograph of a wedding misses such moments as the disorder in people's clothes, the blinking of the eyes and unnatural, constrained behavior. But this is also an important part of your work. Without habit, some people behave in front of the camera's lens in a tight and tense manner. Try to arrange a person more conveniently and freely. Consider frequent eye blinking. If necessary, take several pictures one by one at short intervals. Also, when you are indoors or outdoors you need to change lenses and turn on / off the flash, you can learn more about these things in the article “Best cameras and lenses to shoot weddings”.

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In addition, you should pay attention to the clothes of those present. Disorder in the pleats of the wedding dress of the bride you can fix yourself, or tell the groom to do it. In any case, this moment cannot be ignored, because the wedding dress is the subject of special pride of the bride and her whole family. In addition, make sure that the bouquet of flowers looked beautiful in the hands of the bride, and does not hang lifelessly.

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1.How does the wedding photography begin?

The work day of a wedding photographer starts from a shooting of the bride at home. Your task is to capture pleasant morning fuss and bother before the arrival of the groom and departure to the registry office. Take a picture of her makeup, hair and dress. Of course, it's not easy to work in such a bustle, but it's important to convey the very atmosphere, excitement and anticipation of the celebration of the bride and the people around her. If you have time – make a series of staged photos. Pay attention to shooting wedding attributes.

2.Shooting in the registry office

Ideally, if you know in advance which registry office will be married “your” newlyweds then you can test the waters. You need to find out the location of the room, choose places for shooting, and see what kind of lighting there is. As time goes by, you will know the specifics and characteristics of each registry office in your city, but at the beginning of a preliminary inspection is worth the time. During the civil ceremony, focus on the faces of the newlyweds – this is the most important moment. Take an advantageous position to photograph the appearance of the young, get ready: they will be bestrewed with wedding petals; they will beat glasses and let out pigeons.

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Now it has become very fashionable to hold visiting ceremonies somewhere in beautiful places (on the beach, in nature) or simply in suburban restaurants. 

3.Limousine and places

The route should be thought out in advance and coordinated with the bride and groom. In addition to traditional parks, fountains and squares for wedding photo sessions, visit some interesting and unusual place. The photographer should explain to the guests and newlyweds how to photograph properly at the wedding so that the pictures are successful. For a change, make some ridiculous photos.

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4.Photosession of the bride 

 

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This is her day! The bride very carefully thought through and prepared for this day, so you need to capture in detail the beauty of her wedding attire, hair, bridal veil, bouquet. Take pictures from different angles; make a series of portrait shots and genre photographs. Try to emphasize as much as possible all the advantages of her face and figure. If there are still some unpleasant moments in the photo, then you can always process them using wedding retouching photoshop effects. Think of original scenes for shooting: the bride can ride a horse, swim in a boat, and collect flowers. In the photographic studio, use various scenery and special areas with beautiful interior during shooting.

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5.Wedding banquet 

Be sure to shoot a meeting of young people, cutting a cake, dancing young, congratulating relatives and friends. But it should be borne in mind that people will get tired, and you will have to do mostly reportage shots. Be sure to take pictures of funny contests and entertainment. When the bride will throw a bouquet – shoot the face of the caught girl. Use an external flash and watch the exposure.

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We hope that our advice and recommendations will help you find out where to start taking photos. Well, the rest will follow. Create, invent, and try.

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Perfecting of photos

There will come a time when the wedding day for a young couple will be left behind, but for you it will end only when the photos are printed and the results will satisfy your expectations. There comes a time when all photos will be put in order and decorated in a beautiful wedding photo album. A photographer should make a choice from a large number of photographs taken. Do not take pictures that you do not like for family photo editing. We advise you not to place blurred and unsuccessful photos in a wedding photo album.

After you have made the selection of photos, arrange these pictures in a certain order. First, divide them into separate stages according to the order of the wedding day events: one part of photos from the church, the other from the Wedding Palace, the third from the groom and the bride's house. Then follow in chronological order. And second, important work is done by the retoucher, if the photographer himself does not have these skills.

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Most wedding photos are passed into the hands of retouchers, which in various wedding photography post processing services resuscitate pictures taken by colleagues. There are also such photographers-retouchers who are more concerned with correcting other people's mistakes than by correcting their own photos. On the market of photo services, the masters, who do not spend a minute cleaning up their photos, pass the dirty task to retouchers. For them, it's more important to take thousands of shots for one wedding. Adjusting the images to customer requirements is not theirs.

Not all photographers try to understand the principle of the operation of graphic editors (there are quite a few of them). One can turn to the services of unfair online wedding photo editing service, you can read about the consequences here “Why should you stop using outsource photo editing for photographers in India”. And others without mind use plug-ins and filters, without a twinge of conscience, turning people into a kind of wax figures. It also happens that the white balance setting trusts the machine. And when it “did not guess”, they try to “fix”, which leads to disaster.

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Photoshop wedding photo editing tutorials

Let's take a quick look at how to edit wedding photos. We conditionally divide the general process into three components:

1. Basic processing. 

2. Retouching the image. 

3. Color correction and other special effects.

Basic processing includes a number of measures to correct the fundamental drawbacks of the frame: cropping the image, correcting the horizon, correcting the distortion and color aberrations of the lens, aligning lights and shadows, sharpening, white balance correction; noise on a wedding photo.

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Retouch is the removal (basically) or the addition of various details on the image. In the wedding photos are divided into the retouching of people present in the photo (skin, eyes, teeth, hair, etc.) and adjusting the surrounding space.

Color correction – this is giving artistic quality, by changing the color scale and the palette of the colors of the cadre. It requires an understanding of the combination of colors.

There are many methods of color correction: toning, individual change of a specific color, adjustment of saturation, tones, brightness and contrasts. Competent correction of colors, as a rule, is a creative combination of all of the above.

Special effects – this is giving artistic quality, by adding different textures, blur; application of detailing (the process of artificial underscoring of outstanding details, while objects begin to acquire additional volume) and plastics (a complex process of making objects attractive by changing their geometry), using artificial vignetting.

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Nuances, intricacies and complexities of work how to edit wedding photos

From the above section it can be seen that the quality processing of all photos of one wedding is a very long process (depending on many factors, the cadre can take 5 minutes to 1 hour). Approximate number of cadres of one average wedding day is about 700 pieces. Therefore, those wedding photographers who claim to process absolutely all wedding photos are likely to be grafted, and if not, then their processing is a little messy (there is certainly no individual approach to the cadres, all processes are used in automatic modes).

Wedding photo artists know how to edit wedding photos in Photoshop good, that the artistry of their creations can simply go off scale. Not only that wedding photos come laden with a deep plot sense, they are well-honed. They use unique color solutions and complex combinations of graphic effects. Therefore, if you called yourself a photo artist, your work must comply with the declared title.

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As a result of the basic processing, you should strive to make the cadre look natural with the correct compositional decisions, the picture is balanced and there are no offend the eye artifacts. To avoid this, you need to take a responsible approach to learning how to edit wedding photos in Photoshop.

During retouching, it is especially important to pay attention to small details, painstakingly working through all the elements of the cadre, you will make play up the most ordinary photos from the wedding.

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All actions concerning image correction should be based on common sense. For example, the retouching of a bride or groom on a wedding photo should not violate anatomical features (removing facial wrinkles can change the meaning of the cadre or you can not remove birthmarks or freckles that impart a certain charm and sexuality). The main struggle comes with pathological flaws (local inflammations, injuries consequences, pouches, ugly moles, wrinkles and hair, skin pigmentation disorders (allergic reactions, etc.), unhealthy tone and excessive shine of the skin). Also, if necessary, hair styling is corrected, teeth and eyes are corrected. Be sure to try to save a healthy skin texture, but strengthening it can lead to the effect of significant aging persons. Therefore, you need to be careful about the choice of programs for processing, in the article “Lightroom or Capture One Pro: what is better for wedding photo editing?” you will better learn how and where to perfect photos better.

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The result of color correction and the use of visual special effects is the decisive factor in the choice of a wedding photographer, because your future client looks at your profile and your results photo retouch before and after in the portfolio. The talent to change and improve the color space of the cadre is based on the inner worldview of the photographer. Sometimes the search for a color solution takes a long time. Thanks to color correction, the same photo can acquire different moods, and special effects give a distinctive style.

In conclusion of our little review about Photoshop wedding photo editing tutorials we want to note that the processing of the original wedding photos is certainly necessary, and the way to the ideal cadre can be difficult and thorny.

We hope that we have sufficiently fully disclosed the issues of computer wedding retouching Photoshop processing photos from the wedding, and now you will treat better and more responsibly to your work.

After processing the photos, you can print photos that, in your opinion, are retouched best, not only in the usual 10 * 15 format, in which the album is filled, but also in large format (13 * 18, 18 * 24 cm, etc ).

Try to approach the layout of the photo album creatively. Do not work on a pattern. Try to make any novelty in the design of the photo album, thereby attracting the attention of the viewer.

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Be concise. Do not fill the albums with photos just because you made the most successful shots, which reflect the important moments that happened on this day. If there are a lot of pictures, decide together with the newlyweds what to do with them.

It also depends on how you previously agreed with the newlyweds about the performance reward.  Keep in mind, this only works when you take a photo shoot in the form of a friendly service. A professional photographer with retouching skills will do otherwise. He usually stipulate photo retouching rates with the newlyweds in advance.

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Difficulties of wedding photography and problems of a wedding photographer

The need for a photographer for a wedding arises when people themselves cannot shoot a particular material that is important to them (there can be many reasons, but more often they are difficult shooting conditions and lack of photographic experience). Following common sense, people make a deal with a wedding photographer. And if the customer thinks that at this stage he has solved all his questions, then for the photographer the problems just begin. The wedding photography, like most types of commercial photography, requires a high-quality product and experience in pre wedding photo editing tutorials.

Let's take a closer look at the problem of complex conditions of photography:

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1. The number and quality of light (twilight, dusk, bright light, hard light, the degree of cloudiness of the weather, shooting indoors).

2. Movement (frontal motion, macro shooting of moving objects, shooting in wiring, non-rectilinear movement (dances, contests)).

3. Handheld macro shooting.

4. Spontaneously changing conditions for wedding photography (lighting, meteorological conditions).

5. Environmental conditions (extreme temperatures, high humidity, etc.).

6. Inadequate wishes and behavior of the bride and groom.

7. Arbitrary combination or summation of the above.

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Т: photographing the wedding is complex. The photographer at the wedding has to take pictures of the statics (portraits of the bride and groom), the dynamics (the first dance of young people and the reporting of significant wedding traditions and rituals), in macro mode (wedding rings and other important wedding accessories), etc. For achieving the best quality of the taken photos, photographer has to know Photoshop wedding photo editing tutorials.

The experience of the wedding photographer plays a major role in the ability to cope with the tasks, but when the events unfold rapidly and continuously the shooting conditions change, even the photography gurus make mistakes. Therefore retouching unique cadres with unique wedding photography is the only way out of difficult situations.

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For photographers who shoot dynamic subjects (wedding is not an exception), mobility is very important, they simply cannot afford to have cumbersome and numerous photo equipment. And then the correction in the program wedding retouching Photoshop comes to the rescue (tighten and adjust colors and light, highlight accents is not so difficult).

Discuss in detail with the newlyweds the nuances of the wedding photography in order to understand exactly what is waiting for you, what you will need to implement the project and will not allow a lot of mistakes. The better the cadres – the less post processing (more free time).

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Conclusion: our tips for the wedding photographer

A wedding is one of the most remarkable days in the life of any family, therefore it is especially important that the memory in the form of a photo about this day will be beautiful and unique. What will preserve the memories of marriage better than the unusual and interesting photos? Only pictures of decent quality, unique in the story and execution. To do this, young people carefully select a photographer who can create unique masterpieces, play with light and color, and offer extravagant and classical themes and subjects for shooting. Processing wedding photos, in essence, becomes an important stage in the creation of a wedding photo album, because without accurate and modern adjustments, the result of a wedding photo session is unlikely to please young people.

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Unfortunately, many couples think that an experienced photographer creates his masterpieces without using special programs and adjustments, that for him only good optics and newlyweds who are hungry for shooting are enough. However, in fact, not always the pictures can do without the processing of live wedding photos; besides, if photographers know how edit wedding photos well to please the young couple. 

If we are talking about live and not staged shots, then the photographer's fault can be partially removed and he has to apply a lot of skills and abilities in order to remove unnecessary items that fall into the frame, change lighting, correct some details, add mystery to the cadre, and create popular effects. As a rule, the processing of wedding photographs involves the correction of color, lighting, contrast, photographic grain, retouching of elements of clothing or face.

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Not always the bride or groom manages to look perfect: stick up hair, unsuccessful make-up or skin defects can be corrected by processing professional wedding photographs. At the same time, the photographer with the help of special programs can carry out a full-scale multi-level retouching, which is made exclusively for pictures that will be printed in a large format. They will become the pride of the couple, pleasantly gratifying the eye with “magazine” quality and glamour gloss. As a result, from an experienced photographer, a couple will get high-quality photos that will differ significantly from the originals by expressiveness, attractiveness, and romanticism.

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Preliminary discuss the plan for the upcoming event, think over the details, listen to the wishes of the bride and groom. Your main goal is to capture one of the most significant events in the life of a newly-married couple, so you should not have any gaffes or unpleasant surprises on your part. You should always have a spare camera, battery, high-speed and wide-angle lens, flash and tripod. Be polite and tactful, calculate the time for staging and reportage photos, let the young people enjoy their holiday. An unobtrusive photographer has more chances to make sincere pictures. You must be prepared for any whims of the weather: rain, snow. Learn how to photograph a wedding in winter and summer, how to use natural phenomena to create interesting and beautiful photos.

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