Photographing Families: Tips for Capturing Timeless Images

9: Postproduction

Postproduction. It can inspire a love-hate relationship with your computer. If you are a computer geek who loves to create digital art, and do not mind spending loads of time behind the computer, postproduction might be for you. If, on the other hand, you are a single photographer running a portrait business and think of time as money, the last thing you want to do is spend unnecessary time in front of the computer.

Most new photographers greatly underestimate the time they spend in front of the computer editing, adjusting, and retouching images. I have witnessed several new photographers give up their businesses because they did not like postproduction work or they had no idea how much time it entailed. Many photographers today either run a home-based business, or have a part-time studio assistant. Photographers with small boutique studios need ways to make their workflows fast and efficient. The best way to speed up postproduction work is to set your shot up correctly in the camera, as I discuss in Chapter 3. It is common for inexperienced photographers to use postproduction as a way to “fix” problems with exposure, white balance, and cropping instead of using it as a tool to enhance well-exposed photographs. (Part of my passion for “getting it right in the camera” comes from the fact that I am not a huge fan of postproduction work.)

In this chapter I ...