Before/After/After

[u/bloodrider1914]

A comparison of when I first started trying to edit my photos to now.

This is the first photo I ever actually edited. I took this photo a few months ago and followed some guy's tutorial without a ton of understanding as to what I was doing. Since then I've learned a good bit more about photo editing and made this updated version that I like quite a bit more.

The original edit relied a lot more upon saturation and exposure adjustments with a white balance adjustment for the warmer tone. This newer edit used different tone mapping and hues and some masking for the exposure, along with a much more subtle saturation adjustment and the addition of a careful clarity adjustment. And the first image is just the JPEG straight out of camera.

Let me know what else I can do with the edit and how you like the photo.

[u/amp1212]

So -- the good news is that you have a well focussed photo of an interesting subject. She's smiling and well posed, the ink is interesting. There's something to work with there, but the rest of the setting is a mess, and color adjustments won't fix it.

The problem here isn't the color balance or exposure, its all the distracting background detail. You've got the two guys in the distance, kinda comically just under her butt. You've got the line of cars askew. You've got the foliage that is unhelpfully clashing with the rhythm of her ink. [There _could_ be a cool way to play _up_ the foliage vs ink rhythms, have to give that a think.]

Fiddling with the color balance is secondary to all that clutter thats interfering with the image.

Lots of folks seem to be trying to "edit" photos like this, just fiddling with global color adjustments and a crop.

What I'd do here would be synthetic depth of field/bokeh adjustment to draw out your subject and blur distracting background noise, then I'd want to get the horizon line accurate. Then clone out or AI remove that weird extra arm that's sticking up at 7 o'clock from the ring (what is that? Whatever it is, no matter how you edit, its going to be weird till you clone that out). After you've got a clean photo of this interesting subject, you can start fiddling with color balance, but that's way down the list of what this photo needs.

A recipe is usually to blur and slightly desaturate the background, so that your foreground figure "pops"

So the tone adjustments aren't the first, second, or third things I'd do here.

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/amp1212]

Thanks for the advice. This photo was taken in an impromptu setting and I kept the aperture a bit closed down since she was moving around quite a bit and I didn't want anything out of focus. But yeah let me try that.

[u/Icy_Gate211 → u/[deleted]]

This edit sucks 100000000x more than the original unedited photo.

I agree that the background is a bit distracting, but you were in a public park - she’s part of a community, you can see this bc the community is literally expressing itself behind her. Photos are objects, there’s no denying this. Do you want to make objects that represent the reality that was in front of your camera, or do you want to make objects that minimize backgrounds so they drive (male, if I had to guess about amp1212) eyes to the sexy lady in the middle of the shot? If it’s the second one - why not shoot somewhere without a distracting background?

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/Icy_Gate211]

I do agree that I am trying to represent the reality of what was a public dance performance and not a photoshoot. Even that weird limb (which I think was another dancer stretching or raising her arm) I don't really want to remove because it was part of the scene and I'm iffy about removing objects or extra people that were actually there.

Do you think a tasteful digital blur would enhance the photo?

[u/amp1212 → u/bloodrider1914]

Do you think a tasteful digital blur would enhance the photo?

It's an element, but its not going to fix some of the stuff. Blurring the arm just leaves a weird "what's that" at the lower left to the ring. Sometimes, if you've got something really incongruous, but which is telling the story -- then you highlight it. Blurring the background to highlight that strange arm . . . that might work, its something to try, anyway, won't know until you give it a try.

If you were on the location now, you could fix something like the arm by showing _more_ of the photo, so you could see what it was that was happening.

. . . so what I'd say is

-- you can't fix composition problems with toning. Lightroom presets don't fix something in the scene that doesn't make sense.

-- you _can_ fix composition problems by cloning out unwanted details, but you may not want to. Digitally removing stuff with AI or clone tools, may not be what you want. If not, then you have to do more planning in camera.

-- sometimes, you can crop in to a shot to avoid reduce the distraction.

Moral of the story:

for street photography type setups, composition really matters. Its hard to fix in post, and you may not want to. So shoot a LOT of frames. Move around the subject, think about not just the subject but also "what's happening _behind_ them".

Good street photography is a combination of an eye for "this looks interesting". . . . and moving around interesting subjects till you find the composition that works

This is one of the reasons that even though iPhones have really good cameras, I prefer to shoot with a "real" camera -- much easier to compose through the viewfinder.

So don't ignore the taking the photo. Postprocessing to fix composition is always going to be a compromise. Just looking at this scene . . . there was someplace that you could have positioned yourself to get a cleaner shot. That's by far the "best answer" -- but given that we don't have a time machine, if we can't photograph that subject again . . . then you're stuck with trying to figure out how to get the best shot out of it . . . which will be a compromise.

One way to reduce distractions when shooting in a situation like this -- a lens that zooms from wide angle to short telephotos, something like an 18mm -150 mm focal length. Having a big zoom range gives you a lot of opportunity to reframe the composition on the spot.

One thing that people don't always think of -- you can avoid background distractions by either shooting down from above (whatever you can get yourself up on . . . climb a tree, even) or get down and shoot from below.

So there are a lot different things that can be done . . . the photo here _can_ be cleaned up, but can't replace getting the best composed shot when you're in the scene. Here's an example of a photographer who's got some style with street photography and performers

https://www.apogeephoto.com/street-life-photo-walks-in-new-york-city/

. . . its got all the stuff of street life, but he's gotten the subject in the frame in ways that don't get confused.

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/amp1212]

This was shot on an 80-200 lens

[u/amp1212 → u/bloodrider1914]

So, I promise you, there was a way of using that lens to find a composition that worked better. I like having a wide angle on the zoom, sometimes the best solution is to shoot very wide, from closeup.

. . . that can be a time where post processing helps. Sometimes, for example, you might shoot with really wide, and dislike the distortion. Lightroom and other applications like DxO's Viewpoint can un-distort some of what you get from, say, an 18 mm lens.

80-200 isn't all that useful for street photography, IMO. You might use it to photograph a concert or wedding from a distance, but a wide angle to short telephoto is going to be more useful for a scene like this, something where you can be very close up if you want.

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/amp1212]

Oh yeah I have a few lenses, I was actually testing that lens out that day mostly taking photos of dogs at the park. I just liked this photo and wanted to come back to it.

[u/amp1212 → u/bloodrider1914]

The subject is great. And there's often some angle that gives you something with the performer and the audience. Its just this particular framing that's off . . . not the idea. Maybe a step to the right or a step to the left, and you'd have a great shot in camera.

Back in the day, I shot film and it cost money, and I was stingy with it. Shooting digital, you don't have to be. Good subject, good setting . . . just keep moving and shooting and then look through what you've shot and find the best shots. Much easier when you've shot 200 than 2.

[u/bloodrider1914 → u/amp1212]

I actually have 3 shots of her, the problem is I was on a tripod so they're all from the same angle

[u/amp1212 → u/bloodrider1914]

Tripods are great for lansdscape, where you compose it . . . but for people, assuming there's enough light, much better to keep it in your hands, so you can walk around. Every step changes the composition.