Bad Photo Editing

Now this might come as a shock but I did not love every photo that was on display (and this includes some of the category winners) at this year’s Capture Oakville juried photography competition put on by the Oakville Camera Club.

In fact I thought some of them were over edited to the detriment of the artist’s intention and I wouldn’t have voted in the same way that the judges did on some images.

Before we look at my complaints I think it important to understand where it is I am coming from when it comes to photo competitions.

First of all I think they are a lot of fun. It’s a great way to build your reputation and portfolio whether you’re an enthusiast-level photographer or even someone brand new.

Photo competitions will help you grow as a photographer and it’s exciting when one of your images garners some recognition from your peers.

There’s no reason not to enter an image or two.

But I don’t enter my images in contests. I often joke that after 50 years shooting as a professional photographer it would be unfair of me to compete against amateur shooters. The other half of this thought however goes that if I got beat by some amateur I might not be able to show my face again at club meetings. Mostly this is a joke LOL.

No my real reason I don’t enter contests is photo contests are judged by a jury that uses a criteria to base their decisions. If you know the criteria and what to expect when entering a photo contest then you’re likely going to do better than someone who doesn’t understand this situation.

As for me in the past I only shot for people who paid me (I’m not counting the volunteer work I did over the years for non-profits and charities) or now in my retirement I only shoot for myself. I don’t shoot to criteria.

But this post is about bad editing issues and whether or not you’re entering images into photo contests or just shooting for yourself there is a lot you can do to make your images even better.

So what did I see that I didn’t like at this year’s Capture Oakville?

I thought a lot of the post processing in Lightroom (and likely other raw editors) was overly done. The heavy-handed effects often made the image overly dramatic and not life-like or pleasing for me. Images which had no background and just hung in black space were also an issue for me. For me some images could have benefited from a different cropping.

Now notice every comment made here included the words “for me”.

This means these are my opinions and aren’t necessarily right. Again the judges awarded some of the images I didn’t like with prizes and recognition.

But perhaps before you enter the next contest you might want to review your editing techniques. To that end YouTube has a lot of “how-to” videos that you’d find helpful. A lot of clubs, including the Oakville Camera Club, offer courses online and in workshops about how to edit your photos in post processing software.

To get you started here’s a video from photographer Ian Worth on “Photo Editing MISTAKES that Pro AVOID (But BEGINNERS often Make!)“