Ned Jackson Photography Blog

Last weekend I had the privilege of photographing Nate and Deb’s fantastic Boston wedding.   Nate and Deb were such a blast to work with and left us nearly an hour to play with in the Back Bay during sunset (Thanks Nate and Deb!!).  More shots from that series to come!  I thought I would share one image from the day, and answer an often asked question at the same time.  Many of my clients/prospective clients ask me about the extent of “post-processing,” or “editing,” that I do to my images.  I thought I would show you the final product, then walk you through some of my steps.  I try to get the image as perfect as possible at the moment of capture – but it doesn’t always work exactly like you wanted – and you can almost always tweak it just a bit to make it look just a little better!

Here’s the final image that I selected.  Deb and Nate are huge fans of the Public Library & the Back Bay and wanted an image that represented their love of these buildings and the time they spend there together.  As a fan of architecture I couldn’t pass up these amazing arched doorways – and  I was LOVING the warm reflection of Trinity Church in the background!

To see where this image started from – I’ll show you what it looked like straight out of the camera with no manipulation at all.  As you can see – the colors are a bit washed out, the image is tilted a bit and Deb’s dress is blown out.  Very easy to fix.

With some slight tweaking of the image colors, overall brightness, some sharpening and a crop – you’ve already got a much better looking image.

Now-  I’m pretty retentive.  At least when it comes to my images.  Those stickers and signs on the door are annoying the hell out of me and ruining an otherwise perfect image.  Do some Photoshop magic and make those stickers vanish!  Lighten up Nate & Deb a bit – also punch up the reflection in the window and the head over the top of the door – zip zap.  I also want to warm the picture up a bit and sharpen it just a tad so it looks nice and purty on the website!  And viola!  The final pic:

But…. I can’t always seem to leave well enough alone – so I had to test whether this one would look nicer in a B&W.  So I converted to greyscale and chose a really punchy b&w that would work well with this great architecture. Personally- I liked the color version more.  So did Amanda – so it stays!

So that’s it!  Easy peasy.  What do you guys think?  Do you like the B&W better? Or the Color?

For years I have been using Pocket Wizards- a small electronic device that can remotely trigger your flashes – to get some fun and unique results without having to worry about wires.  Chances are, you’ll usually see me whip them out at least once during a wedding.  Recently, Pocket Wizard announced a new line of radio triggers that will sync seamlessly with my existing camera flashes.  I can’t wait for this technology to come out (right now it’s only out for Canon and I’m a Nikon shooter).  This new technology is going to give me an unbelieveable amount of creative freedom.  Pocket Wizard is an excellent brand – and recently I was added as a “Friend of Pocket Wizard” on their website.  If don’t have them yet – wait a month or two until the new units come out.  They’re going to be unbelieveable!