What we do with our photos after we get done shooting is the other half of our work, so we want to make post process count! I was so resistant to switch to digital years ago, but I can’t believe how the creative process has become so much richer. My creativity no longer has to stop with the framing and shooting. As you can imagine, we’ve found lots of wonderful tricks along the way.

Below is a good example of how I used actions during post process. Here is the shot straight out of the camera. Too dark, and I wanted to boost the color more b/c of how cute it was to have Blaze in Pascaline’s old pink/red snow suit and boots. 🙂

Here’s the after shot! I upped the color but didn’t use the action to its full capacity, then I drew more focus to Blaze, and most importantly, removed the random man walking in the background. We use Lightroom for our post process work. If you want to learn it you can (believe me, if I can, you totally can!!).

Whatever software you have for post process, I encourage you to spend even 1 hour a week getting more familiar with it. The post process of color saturation, toning, brightness and contrast can awaken a whole different side to your creativity!

Exercise for “Make Post Process Count”!

1. Pencil an hour to yourself when the kids are at school or in bed and pick one photo that needs some color adjusting (too dark, too bright, you’d rather have it be black and white, etc).

2. If you are somewhat comfortable with Lightroom, experiment with contrast, blacks, whites, shadows, colors, or the presets.

3. If you don’t have Lightroom, commit to spending an hour this week on getting to know your post process software a bit better. Try removing the saturation from your image to make it black and white. Play with the contrast and brightness to add more drama to the image. Be careful not to burn out the faces when doing this. The “brighter” you make your whites the more information you lose on that image and it can look like you have a literal hot spot on the face. Not good, especially for printing quality.

4. If you have a Color Balance option, move the reds up a bit and the yellows down and create your own version of Sepia (brown toned black and white). I’ll usually move the red up and the yellow down depending on the lighting of the shot. Play around with your own settings, discovering what brown tones you like best. Then add some contrast to make it more dramatic!

5. Post some results when you make post process count to my Facebook page and don’t forget to send the Before shot too! I’d love to see what you come up with!