Here’s to us

When I’m processing wedding images I’m careful to try to keep the processing consistent, so that the set of images gel together.  This is important where you might process a few hundred images, but know that you’ll select only 40 or 50 for perhaps an online album or a coffee table book.  That said, it can be nice to take a handful of images and, having done the “safe” processing, to try something different with them in the hope of creating an image that stands out from the rest.

In fact, this approach doesn’t hold for just processing images.  I’ve often read good advice for photoshoots of any type, particular involving people, which says to play it safe first and to get the important shots without too much drama, and then try something different or get more creative.  This advice is particularly important where someone has hired you to take photographs for a particular purpose.  The photographs you must deliver get priority.  For instance, a few months ago I brought Aoife into the studio to take a new headshot for her company’s website.   Only after we had that shot in the bag did we experiment with something that had more of a fashion look than the previous shots, which were all corporate portraits.

Bringing that idea back to post-processing, my approach is usually to do processing which gets each image technically correct, and then with a selection of my favourite shots, perhaps see what can be done with a little experimentation.  If it fails, then you have the safe shot to fall back on.  And the safe shot is still a good shot, so that’s not so bad.

In the case of today’s photograph, having processed shots from Fiona and John’s wedding – where I was a guest rather than the photographer, but when does that stop me taking photographs? – I came back to this image as one I quite liked.  At the time I was experimenting with HDR techniques and so I took this image and decided to see how it would react to a HDR treatment.  For comparison you can see my first cut at the processing on the right.

In reality, a HDR treatment of people seems to require more work to avoid the skin looking totally unnatural.  Having settled on settings for the HDR plugin Photomatix, I had to bring the image back into Aperture and desaturate the skin tones to get them looking a bit more natural.  I also applied a strong sepia tone to the image to both warm it up slightly, and to give it some mood.

Three reasons why I like the HDR treatment on this shot: detail, detail and detail.  Namely, the detail in Fiona’s dress, the detail in John’s suit (and his hair, actually), and the detail of the wood panelling on the door of the car.  Also, I really really like how the highlights on that car door have been reproduced.  The HDR treatment therefore allowed me bring detail into both the light and dark areas of the image and while I’d be reluctant to try this for many portraits I think, in this case, the effect works quite well.