Stop ruining your Photograph!!!

A photograph to a photographer is what a fine made dish is to a chef and what is similar in both of them is that no matter how good either of their creation is, they still like to garnish(edit) it a little so that it looks more appealing to others. Now what makes them both different is that even if the garnishing on a dish goes wrong, the dish would still taste the same as what the chef has intended to make but for a photograph if the editing is over done, it ruins the entire photo. 

The recent trends that are being followed all over social media especially on Instagram and Facebook include a lot of good photographs with a lot of over editing that make their good photos into “Holy Mother of Dragons, what did I just see?”

Now I’ll try my best to mention what I think ruins a perfectly fine photo.

(1)- Over Saturation- What Saturation does is increase the depth and intensity of the colors in the image, now overdoing it means increasing the intensity of the colors to such a level that it looks unnatural and when you view the image the first thing that you’ll notice would be the popping colors and not the objects in the image which should not be the case.  

(2)- Over Sharpening- What Sharpening does is it increase the definition of the edges in the image resulting in a much sharper looking image (means the various objects in the image can be differentiated.), now over sharpening it makes the edges more visible then the actual object which in most of the images looks over-cooked (subjective).

(3)- Unnatural Highlights and Shadows- Highlights are usually referred as the brightest area in the photos and shadows are the dark area where the light is blocked by an opague object. Increasing the highlights means increasing the brightest areas which are already bright that makes it look very flat and unusually bright image whereas if the shadows are increased in the image to an abnormally high l

(4)- Extreme Vignetting- Vignetting means darkening the edges of the image so that the attention of the viewer goes directly to the subject which in general case would be at the center. Over doing it would mean darkening a large part of the image including the edges which makes the make look dark at the most parts and not attractive at all. The key here is to do it up to a subtle level.  

(5)- Too Much Contrast- Contrast is the visual ratio of different tones in an image. This difference is what creates the textures, highlights, shadows, colors and clarity. It is basically the difference in colors that makes an object or its representation in an image distinguishable.

Conclusion- I know what you might be thinking "What is good editing, then?"

For me, Editing is something that’s subtle and precise and not ‘In your face’ (In our case, in your eyes). Editing is like makeup, you don’t always need it but if you can get the best out of it then its totally worth the hassle.