Editing is the art of making things better

To create a beautiful composition, the setup of the original photograph is the most important.

Let the image tell what it wants to be.

Once you hear that voice telling you what to do, you can get to work.

A smart man once said:

“The hardest part of an invention, is the idea. After that, everything becomes self explanatory.”

Once the image tells you what to do, there a few steps to create your perfect composition.

-Check your layers and understand the depth of field on your image.

-Understand the light in your image and specify the direction of your shadows.

-Understanding shadows is important. Once you get it, you can create artificial shadows between the layers you are composing to merge them in a realistic matter.

-The sizes of the layers must be proportional, otherwise the brain will not be tricked to believe the lie at hand is true.

-Levels, hue and saturation are all the fine tuning tools you would need. Colors and contrasts need to match between your layers for your layers to come together like a jigsaw puzzle.

But if the original image did not tell you what to do. Whatever you do shall look cheap.

It is easy to learn the technical side of images and how to edit them. But it all has to build on the structure of the original image. The structure of the original image can only be understood by unleashing the imagination upon it unhinged by the complexity of the imagined.

When you see it, you see it!

And when you see it, you can’t unsee it.

And once you can’t unsee it, you are ready to carve that virtual marble and make it into a statue that looks real but can live forever.

Never stop editing!