Sunday in the Digital Darkroom

Hi all, Randy here.  We had a lot of fun at Jenny and Troy's wedding last night, but now its time for a day at the computer.  A lot must be done before a set of photos can be finalized and put on the web.  The first step, is to import the photos into a software program designed for sorting and adjusting RAW images.  Next, we look through the full set of photos and rate them 1-5 stars.  If the photo is rated less than 4 stars, it usually doesn't make it into the final set.  This process usually cuts out about half of the original set.  Why not just give the clients all the photos?  Because that's lazy and I don't think any bride wants to sit and sift through 2000 images.  We usually shoot for 600-800 for a full-day wedding.

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.