Customers know which pictures they like to look at but they may not understand why. Very few people understand the art and craft of photo editing.
Few publications today have a real photo editor. It would be surprising if any non-media business has a photo editor. Instead, photographers are left to edit their own work and then someone at the client-end selects the pictures they like to look at.
It’s often said that many photographers don’t know how to edit and that photographers shouldn’t edit their own pictures. Many photographers have an emotional attachment to their photos which can cloud their editing decisions.
Some photographers wrongly think that editing is about picking the prettiest pictures. They also incorrectly think that “post-processing” is just running the pictures through a software batch-process and then calling it a day.
Editing skills, like photography skills, take years to develop. Very experienced photographers can often edit their own work. This comes from having an understanding of both the aesthetic and the function of a photograph.
A photographer can learn these skills not so much by looking at their own photos but rather by studying the work of other photographers. By studying and, in fact, editing other photographers’ work, the emotional attachment to the pictures is removed and a photographer can better learn the editing process.
It can be difficult to determine a photographer’s photo editing skills just by looking at their web site. But since photo editing can be responsible for a good portion of a photo assignment’s success, it’s important for a customer to find a photographer who can both shoot the pictures and properly edit the work.
