Next, all of the keepers need to be checked for exposure and white balance (which is what I'm doing today). Today's digital cameras do a pretty good job at automatically selecting a white balance, but I almost always have to tweak an image to get it just right. Its important that the bride's dress look white, and not have too much of a color-cast. I usually leave images on the warm side because it makes the skin tones look better and most people generally prefer that warmer, "Kodak" look.
Exposure is especially important for wedding photos because the camera's internal meter can often get thrown off by the bright white wedding dress, or the dark black suits. The auto-exposure settings on a camera are calibrated to expose each image to a medium gray. Thus, if you take your camera, on automatic, and point it at a white piece of paper, the image will come out under-exposed and gray. Likewise, if you point it at a black piece of paper, it will come out over-exposed and gray. Most images should be adjusted so that there are areas that are true black and areas that are true white. Most importantly, the skin tones should look natural and not too light or dark.
Here is a before/after comparison:
There are more steps in this process, but since I've probably bored everyone to sleep by now, I'll save them for another day. Back to Kellie and Joe's wedding pictures.
