Photoshop? No! Don’t say you use Photoshop on your portraits!  Don’t they just come out of the camera the way you see them “finished”?  Well…an excellent photographer (let alone a good photographer) will get amazing images straight from their camera.  On private Facebook pages and photog-to-photog blogs you will see us sharing “SOOC” (straight out of camera) when we get one shot that is AMAZING and needs virtually nothing done during the development stage.  But, there is that nasty little phrase “virtually nothing.”  For, you see, the better the camera, the more little details that no one wants to see in a portrait will show up.  Amazing camera bodies coupled with amazing glass (lenses) yield crazy clear detail.  Put them in the hand of someone who knows how to set up and light the portrait and details can be enhanced or softened quite a bit.

But when it comes right down to it, digital images have to come out of the camera and be developed into those portraits, and the software of choice for most professionals today is either Adobe’s Photoshop CR or Apple’s Aperture.  And in these programs, we can “develop” the image, and enhance it into a piece of artwork.

Not only that…let’s talk about the dreaded family photo session.  “YIKES, you say.  Please don’t make us all try to look good at the same time and try to get that in one picture.” How many family spats come out of trying to get everyone looking right and cooperating in the traditional family photo session?  Well, until a few years ago, it was VERY difficult.  If someone blinked, yawned, whatever, the shot was blown.  But, now thanks to the digital imaging revolution, photographers can “switch heads” when needed.  Of course, no one  WANTS to do that.  It’s time consuming, and not always successful.  But, it is a possibility.  One of my clients from this past summer shared this solution to little sis blinking in a circa 2000 family portrait shot with a traditional 35mm studio camera.  It’s the close-up, so you can see the “amazing detail” of their solution to the only person having blinking problems…hope it brings you the same chuckle it brought me.  (many thanks to Jeff and Janet Andrews for sharing this snapshot)

Suffice it to say, Yes, I do use Photoshop…it is a key tool that I use to give you fine art portraiture for your family and home.

Enjoy your weekend!