How to select photos to process

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Photography is done by many for quite a several reasons. Some do it as a profession. And some does it as a part time job. Some purely click just because they think it’s fun. And some do it because it’s their passion. And another kind want to imitate and try what they can come up with. You know the things called experimenting..

Whatever the reason maybe we always have a standard towards our work which we set in side of our minds. We come up to conclusions using our past experiences and pictures which have seeing before and the techniques we used etc etc. In the process we decide that some shots are nice, some are good and some as achievements. Sadly many end up being bad or unsatisfactory (Not talking about pros here).

Photography - Priyantha Bandara - Location - Singapore

How do you actually judge if your work is good or bad by looking at it by yourself? Let me tell you how I do it. I follow few steps. Some are technical and some are not.

Is the subject satisfactory? – Sometimes I shoot things when I go outside but when I actually starting to process them at home I stop right there. Because no matter how interesting it looked at location if it does not look good on my pc screen I don’t oblige to my feelings and attachment to it.

Have I composed it correctly? – this is a tricky one. Composition comes different for each and every angle. Therefore I take several shots of the same subject in different compositions. So I try to choose the best of it. Or not choose the closest to the best and try to crop it fit. Still if it does not work I move on to the next shot in line.

Is it sharp and focused where it should be? – Sharpness is a burning issue. Especially when you are using a shallow depth of field or shoot with some camera shake, low light etc. Specially macro shots can get out of focus or blurred easily and so do landscapes. Focusing errors cannot be identified by looking at the camera LCD most of the time. Minor sharpness issues can be fixed. But when focus matters the most it’s a no go.

Is the lighting good? – Exposure or the lights comes in the form or highlights, low lights, shadows, contrasts, glows to name a few. And each has its own value towards a good shot. If light is poor (Overexposed or underexposed) the shot is a no go. But there are several good software’s which can tweak the lights up to some extent. But what you lost at the location you cannot get it back.

And one more good step would be to imagine that you are an post processing agent who processes shots which are taken by someone else. That way you can really select what you want to work with and not. And decide what rocks and what sucks

That was the basic of how I judge my shots before actually proceeding with spending more time on it. Later comes other aspects like white balance, color, hue, saturation etc. It is utmost important to realize and identify the shots which you actually want to proceed with. Some days I scrap my whole work for the day. It's no point trying to save a sinking ship by using layers and layers of post processing. Know your limits!!!

 Photography - Priyantha Bandara - Location - Singapore