Comments on: 10 Rules for Editing Digital Images

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:18:58 +0000

My rules for design, photo, working in general:

Always, always, always, keep a copy of your original files, your working files, and your final file, together and within reach of each other. You will need one sometime, make sure you have it now.

If possible, mask and never delete anything. (Keep everything you will need it.)

ONLY use convert to grayscale after you have desaturated the image properly with the black and white feature. (And saved a copy of the original.)

Always remember to embed your contact info into any file. So when someone is sent your file and needs to change it—I’m talking about commercial work, or advertisements—they can pay you to do so properly. Rather than hack it apart themselves. They don’t want to bother and you want to get paid for your work.

In a magazine, know your layout palette, and tone your image with those nearby. They will affect the final image, whether you like it or not.

Time Machine is your friend, but he’s more like the party guy that knows everything, and everyone. He’ll remember that one thing the one time, but every now and again he’s passed out when you need him. Back up your files.

If it’s not good enough, keep working. If you’re not good enough, keep working. If anything gets in your way, keep working. The best way to excel in this business is to keep working, your best work will go unnoticed for years until someone notices later.

So to sum up my rules: Back up your work and keep everything.

By: Paul Christopher

Paul Christopher — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:33:27 +0000

I am personally grateful for DPS and our Guest Contributors as Martin Whitton. I hope my previous stateent did not indicate otherwise. Again I would like to reiterate that “I agree with the list for people who need a guide.” No matter what level each one of us are at, from novice to pro, we can testify of learning something new from the suggestions of others.

I respect Mr Whitton’s rules and they are a great for photographers to use especially those who came unto this page looking to step up our game. Hey, that’s what landed us here in the first place. Let’s not forget the purpose of the site and its contributions to us and others, that’s why we’re here.

By: Remi

Remi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:04:40 +0000

“These are Martin’s 10 ‘rules’ and no doubt they’ll be debated by readers- what are yours?”

Come on guys, it’s 10 of his own rules. He’s just sharing his way of working. It should not be debated at all. If you like, take it. If not, just keep quiet dan follow your own rule. Out of 10, there must be 1 or 2 that you can appreciate. Personally I like no. 2, 3, 4 and 5.

By: jef n

jef n — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:11:07 +0000

as well as specific naming of pictures, also specific naming of directories. At last count I had over 450 directories. First directorys are Pictures2009, pictures2008, etc, picturesClients, picturesOther, picturesPrint, picturesNew. From their you can go where ever. I have family, friends and clients asking for past pictures all the time, so I’ve written an MS Access data base to cover the date, event, directory, and comments to assist in finding something specific.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:50:49 +0000

Wow .. its a wonder anyone posts ANYthing useful, considering the way “some” of you rip the guy a new one … If you disagree fine, if you have other guidelines, post them, if you’re such a professional, why are you here anyway…

By: Cathy

Cathy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:42:39 +0000

Simple.. save the original image, play around with the duplicate. High school seniors love dramatic effects, and sometimes that over saturation, or special effect on a wedding photo is nothing short of ‘fun’ . As long as the original image remains in tact, the rest is up the the person with the software and the one purchasing it. I love working in Corel Painter and printing on canvas. That certainly changes the original image, It’s everyone’s personal approach to photography. Isn’t it great that there are so many options and so much fun breaking all the rules.

By: steve ricketts

steve ricketts — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:45:10 +0000

before i do anything, i ensure that the resolution is well managed; for instance, if you open your image into photoshop it may measure for example 1500mm x 1000mm at 72ppi, 72 being an unsuitable res. both for editing and printing. At this point i un – tick the resample box, reduce the size for instance down to A3 or similar which will give you a real resolution of over 240ppi ( inkjet optimum ), change to 16 bit then save as a compressed tiff.

By: john john alabata

john john alabata — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:00:24 +0000

Amen, sharpening must always be the last step in post-production….

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:36:05 +0000

Excellent list. Simple and straight forward. I don’t like to mess with my images and like them to look exactly like I saw it. Too many manipulate to death and I’m not keen on that myself. KISS..cheers..Rob

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:43:06 +0000

Photography is art, art means beeing creative (most of the time), and that doesn’t go along with rules very well. Sure, there were always rules in art, but they change all the time, and they get broken consistently anyway. However, although I’ve seen young photographers take beautiful creative shots without any thinking, I realised your photography can benefit from thinking what you’re doing, whether in composition or post-edit. These 10 things are good things to think about (but not all of them by far) but I must disagree with #4 and #6.

And speaking of 4, there’s no real basis for it, with a digital camera your pictures get saturated by the software anyway, and sometimes not enough so you need to saturate them to be equivalent to what your eyes saw (all my pictures get extra-saturation in-camera) – another reason not to count this as a rule, and why this is art, every photographer sees the world differently…