More Isn’t Always Better
When I start to edit a photo, I often have a general idea of what I want to do with my edit. It can be easy to figure out with a lot of images: enhance the sunset, brighten the foreground, etc. Much of it is obvious. But not always. I sometimes find myself sort of “wandering” with my edit. That is, trying various tools and ideas to see how it looks, and deciding if it’s something worth pursuing.
This frequently leads me to more edits, and more edits, as I try and decide on my “vision” for the shot (the irony here is that I don’t have a vision, which is why I keep trying things, just to see what looks good). While I find this method helpful on some images, there is also an inherent risk in this approach: I never know when I am finished. If you don’t have an end in mind, how do you know when you get there? And if there is no finish line, you keep going, right?
This often leads to over editing an image in my experience. I just keep adding tool after tool until I get to something that I like. It’s not always a failure though - some of these times I end up with a result that I love. But many times I reset back to the beginning and start over. I get so deep into the edit that it’s just too much, and I don’t even realize it until I have gone past the point of it making any sense.
When I over edit - or suspect that I have done too much - I give myself a couple of options:
Walk away, take a break, let my eyes and mind reset, so I can come back to it with a fresh perspective
Reset back to the basic raw file and start over, erasing all my edits
Make a virtual copy of the image and start over, thus saving my work but giving myself a second chance to do it better
Move to a completely different type of image and edit that one
Get a beer and see if that makes it look any better 🤣
All of the above are about resetting my mind, getting away from the image at hand, and taking a step back from it to gain a little perspective. When we are too deep into it, it’s very easy to lose all perspective. I have countless images that I have edited so much, and only after taking a break and coming back to them later do I realize it’s a mess. I have lost sight of the gist of the image due to too much editing.
Sure, it’s fun to flex those creative muscles and create something different - and I do that a lot - but giving myself space to reset allows me to come back another time and do a better job with it.
And usually, we know when we’ve gone too far, but after putting all the work into it we don’t want to give up. “If only I do one more thing it will look good!” 😀 It’s like we think it’s just missing a little something that we haven’t found yet, and more filters and effects will get us over the finish line.
Usually that’s not the case. Many times, any addition is actually subtraction.
The interesting thing here is that, in my case at least, many of these images are just not that good to begin with. They are my one or two star images, and I am trying my darndest to turn them into a four or five star image with a lot of editing. It’s the old “putting lipstick on a pig” approach.
Sometimes it actually does work, which I guess is why I keep trying it. But most of the time it’s just lipstick. The underlying image is not that compelling, so I dress it up with light and color changes. I’m as guilty as anyone for doing this.
When you find yourself in these situations, take a step back and look at the image. Really look at. Be dispassionate about it, as though you were judging someone else’s work. If you can do this, and separate yourself from the fact that it’s your image and you put a lot of work into it, you may realize that you have gone too far.
Do you do this as well? What do you do about it?
