Hi lovely people my name is Bima and today I wanna answer few questions that come to my whatsapp about how to edit wedding photos in photoshop. Back 7 years ago I don’t even know how to use this software at all till several months ago I join a webinar in Los Angeles that teach me about how to use it for photo editing in natural way. If we talk about photoshop than most people will tell that your photos gonna be great but in fact, it ain’t gonna happen in a simple way cause your original photos will matter to the final post production result.
Before we jump into the Photoshop Action than I’m gonna tell you 3 (three) essentials work that I commonly do in retouching my wedding photos:
- Afer open the files there are 3 (three) essentials body part that I’m gonna work for, in this part I’m gonna retouch for the FACE, HAIR, and SKIN from my couple.
- Once I’m done with those 3 essentials than I’m gonna check the BRIDAL, including veil and other accessories
- When face, hair, skin, and bridal are done than the next step is check in detail for the surrounding background, it could be mountain, ocean, or any friends or guests who coming to the wedding
Why Photoshop and Not Lightroom
Well, it’s totally like a habit, like why you choose iPhone and the Samsung but generally if you were a wedding photographer than there is always a masterpiece from hundred of your photos that belong to ‘money picture’, special image that become your ‘best of’ from other images.
I personally work with two software, the Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, if I work for my money pictures that I will work with Photoshop rather than Lightroom which become my best software to retouch my documentary wedding images.
If I could tell you my humble opinion why I work with Photoshop than this gonna be about:
1 – Precisely
When I shoot for pre wedding or special moment in wedding like family photo or big group photo than I will set my image file in RAW, it helps me to proceed the post production properly rather the JPEG. Working in Photoshop make me able to do my post production task precisely, which is mean I can selected only for several part of the body such as face, hair, or skin colour that belong to my first essentials for editing.
Now see two photos before and after below,
I shoot this pre wedding in Maldives few years ago and stay in 5 star luxury resort called Lux* South Aril Atoll, when I’m done with my first session of an outdoor shooting than I ask my couple to get into their water villa luxury room and find good spot to take a bride portrait. I wanna make it as simple as I can so I don’t need too much luxury spot but the point is I have to be able to capture the beauty part of my bride till I choose the bathroom with a bath tub.
I encourage my bride, Dickie Ma, to sit on the bath tub and ask her to look at the left side with a little eyes down. I shoot in very tight distance, approximately 2,5 meter away so I put my 16-35 mm f2.8 Canon L series lens on my 5D Mark III full frame camera. Since the bathroom got super low light than I set the lens aperture at 2.8 and hold my continues yellow light right at the front of my bride.
See the details, you gonna see some yellow light surrounding Dickie’s bridal right!
5 simple steps of working on this photo:
- Once I open the files than the first thing that I do is re-set the perspective from my lens distortion
- Selected Dickie’s face, hair, and skin and enhance it as elegant as I can
- I continue my work with selected the white bridal and enhance the colour and contrast
- Enhance the surrounding part such as the wooden window frame behind Dickie and the aluminium water pipe right in front of her
- Enhance the whole colour, contrast , saturation, brightness, and highlights
2 – Details
When you able to work with Photoshop than having a detail work is the one that you can always bet on this software. By using selection feature and use the feather selection than you could enhance one good part of your couple’s body in superb result. You can selected for the hair and veil in different layer which is mean you gonna make those part better than before.
My favourite is getting the photos done and continue with selected part to be enhance with the smart sharpen filter at the end, this features are extremely insane to make your ordinary photos become masterpiece.
3 – Able to Work Separately
As I said before by using Photoshop you can selected some part of the body that you want to be enhanced, my favourite way to do this is by using feather selection and set it in super smooth selection that help me to edit the photos smoothly.
My style is proceed the photos as natural as I can and make it looks elegant. If you see my before-after photo above than you gonna see that Dickie’s personal portrait now become way more better and she looks so gorgeous with her simple long white dress. I only took that photo in such unpredictable spot, the Bath room but it was so perfect and my bride love it so much.
With Photoshop I also able to put some photo filter like purple-blue to gain the saturation and yellow filter to make this photo feels warmer. When I able to work separately than I truly satisfy with this software cause I could enhance some part while let the others as original as I get right from my camera.
Are You Really Want to Know How to Edit Wedding Photos in Photoshop?
Now is the right time for you to make your photos looks glamorous and way more better before presenting to your couple. In a digital era having great post production is really matter cause you must do something more to your properties (images) so it will sell more and invite more money to spend.
When I shoot for another pre wedding than I only give 40 images for my regular collection but when my couple see how to edit wedding photos in photoshop than they ask me to add 4 photos (the total will be 40 images) which is cost $25 per additional photo to be appear on the album and bring me extra $100 cash to my Paypal account.
On this Photoshop Tutorial LIVE video recorded above I’m gonna teach you how to edit wedding photos in photoshop properly starting open the files and do all actions that I did for my photos. I used to spend 19 – 20 minutes per images to be enhanced and finished and you could learn more from this actions to be your guidance.
Go to my Photoshop Tutorials 1 page, and you gonna see some thriller about it.
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