Do Wedding Photographers Photoshop Wedding Photos?
“Can you Photoshop that?” We get this question at least once per wedding. It’s usually tongue-in-cheek, but sometimes there’s a bit of earnestness mixed in there. Maybe it’s because the lighting isn’t idea. Or there are construction cranes in background. Or one of the groomsmen was missing from all of the wedding party photos because he was at the bar (“Can you just Photoshop him in?”). But how much can/should wedding photographers Photoshop wedding photos?
The ethics of photoshop
I should mention here that I’m using “Photoshop” as a catch-all term for photo editing, which can be accomplished using a whole variety of different software and AI tools. Photoshop is just the one that’s most well-known in the lexicon. Kind of like “Google” or “Band-Aid.”
So, how much can photographers Photoshop wedding photos? Well… a lot. With recent advances in artificial intelligence, you don’t even really need a person to take photos of you anymore. With a few prompts, you can create a fake “photo” of yourself getting married anywhere in the world.
The real question is, why would you do that? The best thing that photographs do is help us remember. Remember our first day of school, graduation, family vacations and, yes, our wedding day. Regardless of how pretty an image is, if it isn’t connected to an actual memory, what’s the point? Thirty years from now, are you going to show your grandchildren AI-generated images of a wedding that never really happened? I’m guessing not.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, back to the question at hand. How much do wedding photographers edit their photos? It depends on the photographer, but most do a baseline edit for every photo delivered, and occasional retouching to the select photos that call for it.
Photoshop Wedding Photos: Editing vs. Retouching
Without getting too technical, photo editing refers to adjustments like exposure, contrast, color correction, saturation, sharpening, and sometimes converting to black and white.
Here are a few examples of our photos before and after a basic edit.
As you can see, the edited versions are a bit more punchy. It’s kind of like buffing and waxing a car. It spruces it up a bit.
Photo retouching is a far more specialized form of editing that’s most commonly utilized in the world of fashion and portrait photography. Retouching involves removing imperfections from and softening skin (also known as “airbrushing”), brightening eyes, whitening teeth, “tummy tucking,” etc.
As wedding photographers, these aren’t things we typically do.
When you polish something too much, it becomes fake. It loses its soul. That’s why we prefer live flowers that wilt to the artificial ones that never change.
BUT WHAT IF I HAVE A ZIT?
We can 100% Photoshop that. We want you to see yourself in your wedding photos. A zit isn’t a permanent part of you, it’s a temporary blemish.
There are a few other instances we’ll retouch a photo as well. For example, if Moira photobombs you, we can Photoshop that.
If there are distracting background elements, we can Photoshop that.
If you have flyaways, we can Photoshop that.
Bottom line, we want to enhance reality slightly, without altering it completely.
Photoshop | Editing Style
Editing style varies widely among wedding photographers.
Some photographers specialize in retouching, whether they do it themselves or outsource it to a third party company. Some don’t edit their images at all. Some edit exclusively in black and white. Some photographers still shoot film and “edit” by dodging and burning in a dark room.
This is why it’s important to look through a ton of portfolios and hire a photographer whose work really speaks to you.
Photoshop Wedding Photos | Conclusion
Do photographers Photoshop wedding photos? Yes. But most of us do our best to get our images 90% of the way there in-camera, and then provide a basic level of editing to send then across the finish line.
What we don’t do is remove wrinkles or make people look thinner.
Because real is better than perfect.
