‘Cropping is your friend.’ Excellent points on cropping. ‘When it comes to editing, subtlety is king.’ Another excellent point. ‘Presets get used as answers, rather than questions.’ A clever and powerful observation. I think you actually might have a book to write in your future.
Agreed, especially with the presets. I have about 3 or 4 presets I use about 95% of the time. Excellent starting points for my style but I still have to edit after the preset is put on a photo. I can sometime be on a photo for well over 10min after a preset to get it to look right. I dont use presets as an answer but as a starting point.
I really appreciate how you can make a video about photography that is really a video about being a more critical thinker and how that influences your photography. I find they help me get my mind in a better place to both look at photos I have taken and, when composing a photo, thinking about how I might edit them as I take them. I have learned more for your channel about choices that influence how to take great photos than any other.
One of the best videos for years in regards of editing. Not only repeating stuff already mentioned thousands of times before (ok, cropping is an exception ;-).
Fantastic advice for new photographers! I am not a new photographer but the times I "successfully" edit photos in hindsight is when I follow most, if not all of the suggestions given. Easier said than done though. Great job, James. :)
I’ll start by saying your channel has inspired me to take better images, having recently bought the Lumix G9. I’ve watched most of the popular photography channels on TH-cam and your channel is the most inspiring because you show us how it’s done in layman’s terms. Photography is a journey and you lay out the foundation for beginners to build on. ATB, Damian.
Your explanation that presets should be questions rather than answers is GENIUS! I always used to feel a bit 'dirty' when using other people's presets so the idea of looking at them as suggestions and starting points works really well for me! Cheers!
I'm new in photography and your videos are as exciting to watch as doing some photography work, also your vids help not to loose any interest in photography Thank you for your work, you are amazing
Happy Saturday. Excellent tips. I also like the one where if you can't get into the edit fairly quickly, just stop. I think that was one of your's too. Totally paraphrased I might add!! -Elaine J.
All very valid points, one thing i find frustrating is the almost universal reqirement in Instagram to over edit and blow highlights to 1000% it takes otherwise good images into some kind of parallel fantasy world.
Why are there currently 6 times thumbs down to this great video packed with solid tips and inspiration, presented well with lots of humor? I simply don't get it! Good job 👏 James, once again!
He always gets about 8 or 9 per video which makes me think it is the same 8 or 9 people who can't help themselves. The ratio of Dislike to Like makes them irrelevant and I bet James doesn't give a sheep.
I particularly like the cropping tip. As a newbie (hobbyist) photographer, I’ve found lots of things/people that seem to be vehemently against cropping. I was unsure whether to do it with one of my photos of dew on grass as it didn’t seem to be the ‘accepted’ thing (I cropped it a lot as I don’t have a macro lens). I decided however that I liked it and whilst I wouldn’t want to print it, it is more than likely only ever going to be viewed by people on a phone and therefore should be alright (it turned out quite nicely) 👍
You could use the same 5 tips for relationship counselling when a friend is boring you with their issues with someone they met in Tinder... 1. Reassess 2. Crop 3. Take a break 4. Less is more 5. Introduce presets? Thanks James, you provide so much more than just good photography advice and you don’t even realise it...
Nice one. I’m glad you said that about presets. I always thought that they were probably great for the image that someone else had set it up for, and so I’ve never used them.
all the local adjustment tools in LR - easy to overdo them too - use the arrow on the same line as Effect (but at the right side edge) to set a slider up to control the strength of whatever tweaks you'd included in that "pin"... I hardly use Clarity anymore since the introduction of Texture in LR Classic ... if I do it's probably about 1/2 the value and fine tuned for total effect using Texture as the refiner... Good video man !
One thing I pointed out to a couple people on a photo group recently was how close in you can crop for social media. And it's quite a bit. My camera is 24MP. Instagram is 1350x1080 for portrait. Most phones and tablets are 1080p or 1440p, and most laptop and desktop displays are 1080p or 1440p, the latter of which isn't even 4MP. So don't be afraid to crop if you're not going to be printing it!
Thanks, James! I can really use the tip on presets, to ask a question! I would add another one that goes somewhat in hand with questions and that is realize the power of Masking. One other area would be the use of gradients. These two tools have saved me more than anything I know. I use masking to improve a specific area of a photo and gradients I use to help with depth of field (light to darker subtly ). Thank you again for all you do! Moonpie
Great points, especially about cropping. I've recently stopped with most global adjustments and started doing just local adjustments. I think it works much better.
I catalogue in Luminar & drag and drop to edit in Affinity Photo, Export to folder in Luminar catalogue. 🙂 I know it’s waste of Luminars capabilities. Although, and this is a twist tip on the taking breaks tip, editing quickly. I do this with music production/mixing as it forces you to make broad crucial decisions. I’ve recently been transferring photos from camera to iPhone and editing quickly with Snapseed and Polarr. Cheers James, great tips 👍🏻
Break not a problem. Usually it goes something like this. Wife: "What are you doing?" Me: "Editing photos" Wife: "Did you mow the lawn today?" Me: "Uhhh, I'm heading out to do it now." You know, marriage.
Great video, thanks! After years of practicing, I can see some little improvements in my photography and the cropping issue ist for me definitely the hardest one.
Living in the wrong country if you want to consistently be able to do outdoor vids 😂 but then I say this as someone who is going to visit Scotland next week, sure there won't be any weather troubles at all 😋 It's amazing how much cropping a photo can change it, especially when you change the aspect ratio too. Also the cataloguing before editing tip is key IMO. I'm not super experienced, but 've found looking through all my pics first and deciding what I think I want to spend time editing and ones that I don't. Then a second pass to see which of the ones I think I want to edit, I actually go onto spend time editing. I find I like taking photos a whole lot more than I like editing them, so being ruthless at the cataloguin stage makes it more manageable for me.
You are the analogy king. It’s just like cooking.... and you know nothing about cooking... hahahaha. Oh man you crack me up. Thanks James. Always entertaining and informative.
I've been using deviations of your presets (probably a bit excessively) for a while now and just love how they come out. I assume it's in part due to the face that I have the same camera sensor, but I get very close to the colours I want. So thanks for that!
Always a good way to start my Saturday. I look forward to your videos James and this was great. I have found taking a break and coming back is the best thing to do when editing. I hope you do end up selling presets, and yes I like them as a starting point never an answer
LOL - "4. less is MORE" - nice rhyme, and also so true! E.G. When using Luminar "Looks", I almost always back them off to 50%. You were right, at the start, we never expected this video to only last 5 minutes. Stay safe! Ian :-)
I do my best to crop in camera as I compose. I do have to be careful because I have an APS-C camera. I don’t use Lightroom. I use a Nikon program and another that came with my laptop pre-installed. With one of them, I can do a preset, but it’s usually a white balance because I photograph on hockey arenas when the season starts. Some lights have bad colour shifts. I usually end up tweaking anyway, but I can run that all across that set of photos. Then I concentrate on skin tones, colours, horizon lines, exposure, saturation, contrast and brightness. I really have to watch details in highlights and shadows.Depending how things look, I might crop. But not much. I remember what a Museum conservation instructor told me. “Never do anything to an artifact that can’t be undone”. A photography instructor told me “Never change a photograph so much, that the subject or location is unrecognizable from the original”. So when I work on something, I do my best to make it true to form. There is space for artistic expression. My files are backed up externally. I have a different way of doing things. A folder for each year. Within it, a folder for every month. Then by date. I place the subject matter at the end as an identifier. This may be tedious for some. And the originals? The RAW files? They are kept original in case I do something different. The edited files are assigned letters at the end to determine which edit they are. “a” “b” “c” version. As you said, do some editing and walk away and come back to it. That’s why I might have more than one edit saved. Comparison and choice
It's also a good idea to wait for assessing your photos not directly after you did the shot. Getting a bit of a distance to what has been experienced in the field and assessing the results has the benefit of getting a more neutral view of your work. Most of the time I only do a first review, throw everything away which is clearly unusable, take a break and then do the assessment of the rest. Also then there are less photos to review.
I enjoyed this video. I liked the part about taking a break. I do most of the other things that you mentioned, but I tend to keep my “nose to the grindstone” pretty much all through the process of editing....Unless of course, when I look at the image again a few weeks later, and realize it would probably be a real good image if I just tweaked it a little....But I think that that is a little longer of a time period than what you had in mind. Thank you!
On the cropping point, see Simon Baxter's video on the editing workflow, shouldn't be too difficult to find. He makes the point that you really need to have a crop in mind when composing the image in the first place which fits in with your point on planning a shoot.
Yet another very very useful video. Shamefully for me, tip #1 resonated - what an obvious thing and a real light bulb moment. The other tips were also very useful but when the first one gives you a good kick up the backside...
Really liked the point you made on the view finder and zero distractions, never heard it before but makes total sense 4. less iS MORE ...just know you made me laugh :D ...really nice video and good use for b-roll even if you dont like it to do, on that note location scouting for edit breaks is a nice tipp in itself, could be a really effective use of work time
Nr. 2 is why I rarely use a viewfinder. I find it way easier to judge a composition when viewing the scene on the back screen of my camera. Same for cropping. It‘s easier for me to find a good crop when viewing the image from afar rather than have it all in my face on a big screen
On cropping, it doesn't matter how high the resolution of the photo is if the pixels you're resistant to crop out don't add to the story, or worse, are distractions. The pixel density doesn't change when you crop. That's an illusion from viewing on a monitor, especially if "Fit to Screen" is enabled.
Rusty Walker, the pixel density doesn't change, but you get less pixels left in the picture. If you plan to print big posters and look at them at point blank, there's a bigger change for you to be able to see the pixels if cropped vs uncropped ! 😲
Heya, If you struggle with the idea of selling your presets, you can always put them online with "Pay what you want"-pricing. Many online shop platforms offer that feature these days, where you just say "this is my minimum price, but if you are rich and wanna pay more, feel free". When you then put the asking price to 0, they are still free presets, but you give people an easy option to leave you a tip as an appreciation of your work, making you a few bucks (:
Nice quick tips and a great video as usual. Never worked with presets in lightroom (yet). Would it be better to stay out of it or to try out presets as "Questions" and risk getting stuck?
Taking a break definitely helps. I was re-watching stuff I submitted on my first client job. Oh good lord. The sky was teal and humans were oranges with legs. Thank goodness the client went defunct, I can edit it properly, and post it on my personal site without any shame.
Just as you can over edit you can over crop. Also your drink sounded empty. Also also I use presets as a beginning when I know how I want a photo to look then correct from there. It helps with giving a consistent look on Instagram for each season. During this summer I've used your High Key Punch quite often. Thanks for that. 🥂
I just had a client ask for their files which they had lost. I was terrified when I saw the edits I had done and thought I should tell them I lost them as well. 🤭 I'm sure I'll feel that way in another two years. 😁
Presets as a question is something i picked up sometime back. I was tired of applying presets then editing the photo to something likeable. But then one day i tried all presets i had created, one-by-one. Didn’t apply any. Just edited it from scratch. The finished image was beautiful and worth the full-edit.
At 5:30 I believe there were 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑, millions of them! Also great tips, especially the cropping one. It's amazing how small that subject that was so obvious to you can get.
Um, you do one-to-one workshops? Nice. Anyway, I do very little about editing or photography, but I was under the impression that presets were meant to be used to streamline your work, meaning that you build them by learning which edits you like yourself. Oh, still wondering what's happened to your G90 (and Flickr!). Thanks for reiterating on the tips though, I think they're both helpful and very ah, natural?
James what do you mean with take your time to assess your photos. It usually takes me like 2 days to select which photos I am going to edit from a shoot. I use the star system to rate them and I go through them like 3 or 4 full times to get to just 5 star ones left. But it's not exactly a fun process it's very mechanical in nature, it's just something that must be done to reach the editing phase.
James I crop a lot of my photos even ones I take with my 6 megapixel camera the pictures are still useable in fact they are much better after they are cropped.
A few weeks ago, you hinted at something happening on the camera front. This week, everyone is posting videos about the S5 and they've been using samples for several weeks. So, putting 2 and 2 together, I'm getting a 5. When will we be seeing your video on the S5? I'm guessing you may have one by now.
Sorry for the late reaction, just back from Austria 😊 Great video with very good tips! My problem with cropping always is, that it's hard for me to know how far I can go with it. How much can I crop to still have it look good? I know that most people look at it on their phones and some at their pc's.. But for example for a pc screen, how big does it still have to be to look good if I post it on Facebook for example?
If you sell your presets make sure the amount fits credit card limits, last time I couldn't buy the one at 1,000,000 pounds..... Maybe you should ask your soft drink company to sponsor the channel, you are doing a great job promoting them in view, you just have to add the name.... Continue the fun and hard work.
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzivN4KDg-k/mqdefault.jpg)
‘Cropping is your friend.’ Excellent points on cropping. ‘When it comes to editing, subtlety is king.’ Another excellent point. ‘Presets get used as answers, rather than questions.’ A clever and powerful observation. I think you actually might have a book to write in your future.
Agreed, especially with the presets. I have about 3 or 4 presets I use about 95% of the time. Excellent starting points for my style but I still have to edit after the preset is put on a photo. I can sometime be on a photo for well over 10min after a preset to get it to look right. I dont use presets as an answer but as a starting point.
I feel like i can trust your tips more than the millions of other photography tips videos 😂
Thank you 🙂
I totaly agree 🙂
Couldn't agree more
Especially the beer one! 🤔
yea for real he is very honest and no bs, the video also natural
I really appreciate how you can make a video about photography that is really a video about being a more critical thinker and how that influences your photography. I find they help me get my mind in a better place to both look at photos I have taken and, when composing a photo, thinking about how I might edit them as I take them. I have learned more for your channel about choices that influence how to take great photos than any other.
I love your videos, the way you expess yourself is awesome. Great photographer and great storyteller. Cheers
One of the best videos for years in regards of editing. Not only repeating stuff already mentioned thousands of times before (ok, cropping is an exception ;-).
I finally found someone who can definitely enlighten an aspiring photographer,
Thank you so much 🙏🏻
5 in the morning in the US and I just have to watch this now
Cheers Alex! 🙂
Always a joy to hear the king of waffle telling us less is more. Fantastic vlog as always. Thanks James, keep it up.
Thanks Ian, much appreciated 🙂
Fantastic advice for new photographers! I am not a new photographer but the times I "successfully" edit photos in hindsight is when I follow most, if not all of the suggestions given. Easier said than done though. Great job, James. :)
Taking a break is golden! And I have to chew on the presets tip allthough it already seems to make sense right now.
Thanks!
I’ll start by saying your channel has inspired me to take better images, having recently
bought the Lumix G9. I’ve watched most of the popular photography channels on
TH-cam and your channel is the most inspiring because you show us how it’s done
in layman’s terms. Photography is a journey and you lay out the foundation for
beginners to build on. ATB, Damian.
Your explanation that presets should be questions rather than answers is GENIUS! I always used to feel a bit 'dirty' when using other people's presets so the idea of looking at them as suggestions and starting points works really well for me! Cheers!
Awesome to hear Nikola 🙂
Love the reflection of the bridge including the Stone (barn/shed/wall) and add a few sheep sprinkled in at 5:55 ! Great tips, thank you!
I'm new in photography and your videos are as exciting to watch as doing some photography work, also your vids help not to loose any interest in photography
Thank you for your work, you are amazing
Happy Saturday. Excellent tips. I also like the one where if you can't get into the edit fairly quickly, just stop. I think that was one of your's too. Totally paraphrased I might add!! -Elaine J.
All very valid points, one thing i find frustrating is the almost universal reqirement in Instagram to over edit and blow highlights to 1000% it takes otherwise good images into some kind of parallel fantasy world.
James, I think you may have got me back into taking pictures. These vlogs are really good fun. All the best.
Always enjoy your informative videos James.
Cheers Charlie! 🙂
Why are there currently 6 times thumbs down to this great video packed with solid tips and inspiration, presented well with lots of humor? I simply don't get it! Good job 👏 James, once again!
He always gets about 8 or 9 per video which makes me think it is the same 8 or 9 people who can't help themselves. The ratio of Dislike to Like makes them irrelevant and I bet James doesn't give a sheep.
I loved tip number 4 and the cooking analogy, it’s a great way to think about over-editing 👍
I particularly like the cropping tip. As a newbie (hobbyist) photographer, I’ve found lots of things/people that seem to be vehemently against cropping. I was unsure whether to do it with one of my photos of dew on grass as it didn’t seem to be the ‘accepted’ thing (I cropped it a lot as I don’t have a macro lens). I decided however that I liked it and whilst I wouldn’t want to print it, it is more than likely only ever going to be viewed by people on a phone and therefore should be alright (it turned out quite nicely) 👍
Simply the best photography-related channel ever. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us! I always learn a lot from your videos.
Thanks so much Raul 🙂
You could use the same 5 tips for relationship counselling when a friend is boring you with their issues with someone they met in Tinder...
1. Reassess
2. Crop
3. Take a break
4. Less is more
5. Introduce presets?
Thanks James, you provide so much more than just good photography advice and you don’t even realise it...
Thanks, always look forward to your videos... inside or out.
Wonderful tips Jimmy, thank you!
I almost always learn stuff when I watch your videos. Thanks!
Keep up the great work, love your videos!! Always helpful
Nice one. I’m glad you said that about presets. I always thought that they were probably great for the image that someone else had set it up for, and so I’ve never used them.
all the local adjustment tools in LR - easy to overdo them too - use the arrow on the same line as Effect (but at the right side edge) to set a slider up to control the strength of whatever tweaks you'd included in that "pin"... I hardly use Clarity anymore since the introduction of Texture in LR Classic ... if I do it's probably about 1/2 the value and fine tuned for total effect using Texture as the refiner... Good video man !
Yes! Cropping is your friend.
The best (and probably only) reason for using presets I've seen.
So I've been on a TH-cam Binge with your videos 😅 can't wait for the next one!
One thing I pointed out to a couple people on a photo group recently was how close in you can crop for social media. And it's quite a bit. My camera is 24MP. Instagram is 1350x1080 for portrait. Most phones and tablets are 1080p or 1440p, and most laptop and desktop displays are 1080p or 1440p, the latter of which isn't even 4MP. So don't be afraid to crop if you're not going to be printing it!
These are really great advices, which can bring especially - but not necessarily - beginners to the next level. Well done, James!
Pretty cool video James, some really useful tips man!
thanks James, always look forward to your videos! cheers to you :)
Thanks, James! I can really use the tip on presets, to ask a question! I would add another one that goes somewhat in hand with questions and that is realize the power of Masking. One other area would be the use of gradients. These two tools have saved me more than anything I know. I use masking to improve a specific area of a photo and gradients I use to help with depth of field (light to darker subtly ). Thank you again for all you do!
Moonpie
Great points, especially about cropping. I've recently stopped with most global adjustments and started doing just local adjustments. I think it works much better.
That's the key Richard :)
Love your sense of humor
Wonderful video! More of these please! Can you talk about color? I’m interested in your take on calibration while editing with LR. THANKS 🙏
I catalogue in Luminar & drag and drop to edit in Affinity Photo, Export to folder in Luminar catalogue. 🙂 I know it’s waste of Luminars capabilities. Although, and this is a twist tip on the taking breaks tip, editing quickly. I do this with music production/mixing as it forces you to make broad crucial decisions. I’ve recently been transferring photos from camera to iPhone and editing quickly with Snapseed and Polarr. Cheers James, great tips 👍🏻
Break not a problem. Usually it goes something like this. Wife: "What are you doing?" Me: "Editing photos" Wife: "Did you mow the lawn today?" Me: "Uhhh, I'm heading out to do it now." You know, marriage.
And then the kids....
“I speaka your language “ cobber👍🏻😳🇦🇺
Great advice! I have just taken my first step into what could be the beginning of a photography career. Wish me luck!
Great video, thanks! After years of practicing, I can see some little improvements in my photography and the cropping issue ist for me definitely the hardest one.
Living in the wrong country if you want to consistently be able to do outdoor vids 😂 but then I say this as someone who is going to visit Scotland next week, sure there won't be any weather troubles at all 😋
It's amazing how much cropping a photo can change it, especially when you change the aspect ratio too. Also the cataloguing before editing tip is key IMO. I'm not super experienced, but 've found looking through all my pics first and deciding what I think I want to spend time editing and ones that I don't. Then a second pass to see which of the ones I think I want to edit, I actually go onto spend time editing.
I find I like taking photos a whole lot more than I like editing them, so being ruthless at the cataloguin stage makes it more manageable for me.
Great advice. Love your channel.
Thanks a lot for the tips. I found myself in few of them.
Thanks james, loved it
Hands down for best TH-cam channel! . . . . In my opinion tho😁
4 in the morning and I just learned some new things....thanks!
Sleep well Gary 😂👍🏻
Great video and great tips. I definitly agree with you even as I myself is an amateur and not a professional........yet that is.
When it comes to James videos, always like 1st before watching
"shouty" responses... Love it.
You are the analogy king. It’s just like cooking.... and you know nothing about cooking... hahahaha. Oh man you crack me up. Thanks James. Always entertaining and informative.
Gold sir, pure gold
I've been using deviations of your presets (probably a bit excessively) for a while now and just love how they come out. I assume it's in part due to the face that I have the same camera sensor, but I get very close to the colours I want. So thanks for that!
So true about the presets , nail on the head fella
Cheers Sebastian :)
Great video, lots of quality information, I always find them helpful the majority of the time. Though sometimes you do leave me more confused.
Good tips and great video!
Always a good way to start my Saturday. I look forward to your videos James and this was great. I have found taking a break and coming back is the best thing to do when editing. I hope you do end up selling presets, and yes I like them as a starting point never an answer
Thanks Mark! Much appreciated 🙂
Really useful tips, thanks, great cooking analogy. Random advert for condoms half way through was a bit distracting but I got over it!
Over editing, check! I'll need to look into that. 😄
LOL - "4. less is MORE" - nice rhyme, and also so true! E.G. When using Luminar "Looks", I almost always back them off to 50%. You were right, at the start, we never expected this video to only last 5 minutes. Stay safe! Ian :-)
I do my best to crop in camera as I compose. I do have to be careful because I have an APS-C camera. I don’t use Lightroom. I use a Nikon program and another that came with my laptop pre-installed. With one of them, I can do a preset, but it’s usually a white balance because I photograph on hockey arenas when the season starts. Some lights have bad colour shifts. I usually end up tweaking anyway, but I can run that all across that set of photos. Then I concentrate on skin tones, colours, horizon lines, exposure, saturation, contrast and brightness. I really have to watch details in highlights and shadows.Depending how things look, I might crop. But not much.
I remember what a Museum conservation instructor told me. “Never do anything to an artifact that can’t be undone”. A photography instructor told me “Never change a photograph so much, that the subject or location is unrecognizable from the original”. So when I work on something, I do my best to make it true to form. There is space for artistic expression.
My files are backed up externally. I have a different way of doing things. A folder for each year. Within it, a folder for every month. Then by date. I place the subject matter at the end as an identifier. This may be tedious for some.
And the originals? The RAW files? They are kept original in case I do something different. The edited files are assigned letters at the end to determine which edit they are. “a” “b” “c” version. As you said, do some editing and walk away and come back to it. That’s why I might have more than one edit saved. Comparison and choice
This is good advice, I've started doing this unintentionally when reviewing my images.
It's also a good idea to wait for assessing your photos not directly after you did the shot. Getting a bit of a distance to what has been experienced in the field and assessing the results has the benefit of getting a more neutral view of your work.
Most of the time I only do a first review, throw everything away which is clearly unusable, take a break and then do the assessment of the rest. Also then there are less photos to review.
I enjoyed this video. I liked the part about taking a break. I do most of the other things that you mentioned, but I tend to keep my “nose to the grindstone” pretty much all through the process of editing....Unless of course, when I look at the image again a few weeks later, and realize it would probably be a real good image if I just tweaked it a little....But I think that that is a little longer of a time period than what you had in mind. Thank you!
On the cropping point, see Simon Baxter's video on the editing workflow, shouldn't be too difficult to find. He makes the point that you really need to have a crop in mind when composing the image in the first place which fits in with your point on planning a shoot.
Thanks, James! My Saturday morning was missing something. It was waffles. 🥣🧇🧇😊👍👍
Yet another very very useful video. Shamefully for me, tip #1 resonated - what an obvious thing and a real light bulb moment. The other tips were also very useful but when the first one gives you a good kick up the backside...
Really liked the point you made on the view finder and zero distractions, never heard it before but makes total sense
4. less iS MORE ...just know you made me laugh :D ...really nice video and good use for b-roll even if you dont like it to do, on that note location scouting for edit breaks is a nice tipp in itself, could be a really effective use of work time
Nr. 2 is why I rarely use a viewfinder. I find it way easier to judge a composition when viewing the scene on the back screen of my camera. Same for cropping. It‘s easier for me to find a good crop when viewing the image from afar rather than have it all in my face on a big screen
I think sometimes I get fixated on a certain look then come back later and almost vomit on my laptop. Taking a break certainly helps.
I know that feeling 😂
Wow...that is some type of cropping going on there....lol
On cropping, it doesn't matter how high the resolution of the photo is if the pixels you're resistant to crop out don't add to the story, or worse, are distractions. The pixel density doesn't change when you crop. That's an illusion from viewing on a monitor, especially if "Fit to Screen" is enabled.
Rusty Walker, the pixel density doesn't change, but you get less pixels left in the picture. If you plan to print big posters and look at them at point blank, there's a bigger change for you to be able to see the pixels if cropped vs uncropped ! 😲
More good advice! cheers!
Heya,
If you struggle with the idea of selling your presets, you can always put them online with "Pay what you want"-pricing. Many online shop platforms offer that feature these days, where you just say "this is my minimum price, but if you are rich and wanna pay more, feel free". When you then put the asking price to 0, they are still free presets, but you give people an easy option to leave you a tip as an appreciation of your work, making you a few bucks (:
Nice quick tips and a great video as usual. Never worked with presets in lightroom (yet). Would it be better to stay out of it or to try out presets as "Questions" and risk getting stuck?
Taking a break definitely helps. I was re-watching stuff I submitted on my first client job. Oh good lord. The sky was teal and humans were oranges with legs.
Thank goodness the client went defunct, I can edit it properly, and post it on my personal site without any shame.
Great tips. Love the idea of taking breaks while editing. I have come back going what was I thinking?!?
Just as you can over edit you can over crop. Also your drink sounded empty. Also also I use presets as a beginning when I know how I want a photo to look then correct from there. It helps with giving a consistent look on Instagram for each season. During this summer I've used your High Key Punch quite often. Thanks for that. 🥂
Did you ever go back to old photos and try editing them to see how your eye evolved in terms of edits? Curious about that. Really like the videos!
I just had a client ask for their files which they had lost. I was terrified when I saw the edits I had done and thought I should tell them I lost them as well. 🤭 I'm sure I'll feel that way in another two years. 😁
Love your Videos !
Presets as a question is something i picked up sometime back. I was tired of applying presets then editing the photo to something likeable. But then one day i tried all presets i had created, one-by-one. Didn’t apply any. Just edited it from scratch. The finished image was beautiful and worth the full-edit.
Photomechanic. It’s perfect. Use photomechanic to review and cull your images. Great way to assess your images and speed up your workflow!
Tip 3 - my break is usually one of my little daughters coming up to me to tell me they need a wee... cheers for the video James, good tips 👍🏻
loved this vid. such a likeable guy
At 5:30 I believe there were 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑, millions of them! Also great tips, especially the cropping one. It's amazing how small that subject that was so obvious to you can get.
THANK YOU!
So i saw this feed pop up first thing i said is that Gerald Butler into photography 🤣📸great work n tips..
Haha, I'll take it :)
Great tips. 🍺 Cheers!
Yeah...I do indeed use presets as endpoints way too often. I have abused your Burnt Cinnamon preset for sure. xD
LEGEND 👊
I often crop in to create an image simply to isolate a single object within the frame, amazing how many ‘images’ can be gleaned from a single frame.
Um, you do one-to-one workshops? Nice. Anyway, I do very little about editing or photography, but I was under the impression that presets were meant to be used to streamline your work, meaning that you build them by learning which edits you like yourself. Oh, still wondering what's happened to your G90 (and Flickr!). Thanks for reiterating on the tips though, I think they're both helpful and very ah, natural?
James what do you mean with take your time to assess your photos. It usually takes me like 2 days to select which photos I am going to edit from a shoot. I use the star system to rate them and I go through them like 3 or 4 full times to get to just 5 star ones left. But it's not exactly a fun process it's very mechanical in nature, it's just something that must be done to reach the editing phase.
I agree with all of these and I don't know anything about photography.
James
I crop a lot of my photos even ones I take with my 6 megapixel camera the pictures are still useable in fact they are much better after they are cropped.
A few weeks ago, you hinted at something happening on the camera front. This week, everyone is posting videos about the S5 and they've been using samples for several weeks. So, putting 2 and 2 together, I'm getting a 5. When will we be seeing your video on the S5? I'm guessing you may have one by now.
Sorry for the late reaction, just back from Austria 😊 Great video with very good tips! My problem with cropping always is, that it's hard for me to know how far I can go with it. How much can I crop to still have it look good? I know that most people look at it on their phones and some at their pc's.. But for example for a pc screen, how big does it still have to be to look good if I post it on Facebook for example?
The million dollar question :) It's all about experimenting I guess :)
If you sell your presets make sure the amount fits credit card limits, last time I couldn't buy the one at 1,000,000 pounds..... Maybe you should ask your soft drink company to sponsor the channel, you are doing a great job promoting them in view, you just have to add the name.... Continue the fun and hard work.