Top 7 Trending Melbourne Wedding Photography Editing Style
When you ask a professional wedding photographer in Melbourne, how important does photo editing mean to wedding photography? Well, it is like a girl won’t go on a date with her love one before she wears a good makeup.
A fine art wedding photographer does the same to polish wedding images for bride and groom, only wedding photos that have been finely edited will be upload on online wedding gallery.
I’m guessing most brides have little or more knowledge about makeup in their daily lives and know which makeup styles to make them shinny on the wedding day. However, not many brides know how to ask wedding photographer to process their wedding photos.
You definitely don’t want your wedding photos to be heavily edited, they will look too cheesy and unnatural. A good editing helps your wedding photos honestly reflect moments on your wedding day but in an elegant way.
In this blog, I’ll show you the top 7 trending wedding photos editing styles in Melbourne in 2020, then you make a decision which suit you best.
Light and Airy
The light and airy style has always been the evergreen wedding photography editing style in Melbourne. It is no surprise that more than half of my wedding couples fall in love with this soft and romantic editing technique at their first glances.
What does a light and Airy-edited photo look like?
Overall, the photos will look fresher and brighter than the ordinary ones. The photo images are in low contrast and have a softer color hue.
The wedding photo editor would increase 1/2 stop exposure. At the meantime, it has benefits for bride’s skin tone. It can reduce the bride skin blemish smoothly, then skin looks creamy.
What kind of wedding fits with the light and airy photo editing perfectly?
The light airy photography editing style is perfect for a wedding that embraces the nature. If you are based in Melbourne and having your wedding photo locations at places such as the Yarra valley or the Mornington Peninsula, then this will be your one option for editing styles.
An airy and light editing helps your wedding photography to look natural and organic. And the light and bright filter will make the natural greenery color of the vineyard as well as the ocean blue pop out.
Dark and Moody
Inspired by the Baroque painting which originated in the 18th century, a Dark and Moody editing style is a great choice for indoor wedding photography. Generally, the indoor lighting allows the wedding photographers to create a more dramatic contrast during the wedding photoshoot.
What does a dark and moody-edited photo look like?
Dark and moody wedding photography shows abundant emotional expression, richness in color as well as a dramatic contrast between light and shadow. For this wedding photo editing style, the editor will focus on the light and shadow part of the image and emphasize their contract with each other.
How to apply the dark and moody photo editing style?
Your wedding photographer will apply dark and moody style during the indoor wedding photoshoot as well. He will control the lighting through the window by using covers such as a thick curtain.
When the lighting direction is changed, bright part and shadow area will be created in the photos. In the post editing, the photographer will then boost the dramatic feeling by boosting the brightness on main subject and darkness of shadow.
Normally the photographer will direct the groom to stand next to the windows so he can emphasize the lines on the groom’s face as well as controlling the darkness surrounding him. This wedding photography shooting technique allow a groom’s profile to stand out from the darkness.
The dark and moody photography style is often used in an action movie as well, such as the Dark knight (2008). The groom also wants a money shot to replace his profile photo on Facebook which taken at his high school graduation.
Matte
Matte look has become one of most popular wedding photography editing styles since 2018, the trend is still continuing now. Instagram has made a similar filter to achieve the same look and feel.
What does a Matte-edited photo look like?
Matte photography editing style sounds just like its name: comparing to a HDR styled photo, a Matte edited photo is less contrasted and saturated. The matte images tend to look softer.
The matte preset seem that you apply a slight hazy filter and bring a warm color tone to the entire of the wedding atmospheres.
How to achieve a matte photography style?
For matte looking photography, the photo editing is standing for the second part of the process.
During the wedding photoshoot, the wedding photographer will use a prime lens to create a softer and creamy background.
In the post editing, the wedding photographer will further decrease the contrast between the light and the shadow to make the color of the image look more neutral.
For the print work, the photographer will then select a fine art matte paper. A fine art matte paper allows a further enhancement of the smooth matte look and at the same time, it allows the imagery to keep a wide range of color hues and details.
Muted
People always get confused when their wedding photographers talk about muted and matte photo editing styles.
What is Muted wedding photo style?
Unlike matte photos, the muted color editing brings a dreamy look into your wedding photos and resonate your memory on the big day. Instead of making all color pop out, some color ranges are muted. The muted editing technique doesn’t mean your photographer will remove all color together.
How to achieve muted color on wedding photography?
In the real world, the color is richer and vibrant in human eyes. If we strip out few color hues, for instance, orange and red color from the photos, then the photos color tone will show blue and green which are the remaining.
A muted color photo never equals to black and white photography, as we will only reduce some certain color hues and retain the key color. You could mute unwanted color to approach your personal preference. After removing the unwanted color, your favorite color will become the center of focus.
When should I apply muted color style for my wedding photography?
Imaging your wedding main color theme is pastel pink and if you have opposite color such as navy blue appearing in the photos. You can then use this technique to reduce the impact of navy blue because it doesn’t look harmonic in your wedding color theme in this circumstance.
We can reduce the blue color by reducing brightness and its saturation. The photo would then look more harmonic and consistent.
HDR photo edit
HDR wedding photography style emerged in 2012. After many wedding photographers’ experiments and improvements, the HDR editing style is now more mature.
What is HDR filter?
The HDR stands for High Dynamic Range Photography. The HDR aims maximize the details of your wedding photos by bringing out as much as possible of the highlight and shadow details.
How do we apply the HDR filter for wedding photography?
The HDR preset used to be prominent in architecture and interior photography. HDR can present the architectures comprehensively by boosting the highlight and shadow’s details.
We can also use HDR filter for wedding at certain occasion. For instance, wedding location landscape, sunset photos and etc. Imagine the wedding couple has a romantic sunset photo taken with rich color tone during the golden hour.
HDR for wedding photography, further discussions.
One thing that a wedding photo editor must be aware is avoid abusing the HDR setting which make the photos end up look overcooked.
By using the HDR photography editing style, we want to present the color details and at the same time, we want the photo to flatter brides’ eyes. In fact, brides often expect a smoother skin in the photos which is contradicting with the HDR filter so avoid using too much HDR effects during the editing of wedding photos.
The other downside of overly applied HDR effect can make the wedding photos look unnatural and even unwanted halo effect may appear.
How do avoid HDR’s downside for wedding photography in a smart way?
There are 3 ways to produce perfect HDR styled wedding photography.
Use HDR at a proper time
Don’t apply HDR setting in all outdoor wedding photo. The sunset and sunrise of golden hour is the perfect time to use wedding HDR preset.
Be careful on people’s skin tone
The people skin tone has a narrow bandwidth. Keep it simple, people skin tone is middle of grey. When you apply HDR, please avoid the people skin tone bandwidth. If the people skin tone is out of natural color, you can tweak the HDR setting curve.
Use a good background
The purpose of using HDR effect for wedding photography is maximizing the rich color details in the background, we will often use HDR style for outdoor wedding photos taken with the background the has vivid colors, like a blooming garden and colorful city view.
Black and white
Born with the camera, the black and white photography is truly a classic and timeless photography style. You can find lots of award-winning wedding photos shot in black and white and you also see lots of black and white photos on the cover of a fashion magazine.
When should I apply black and white effect to my wedding photos?
First, don’t overly use black and white for your wedding photography. Brides spend so much effort designing their wedding color themes, the black and white filter will not be able to reflect most of the colors appeared on your big day.
The post editor will use black and white to emphasize the classic and timeless moments of your wedding day. Also, the black and white can bring out a touch of minimalism.
How to apply the black and white photo editing style?
The wedding photographer will slightly tweak the highlight and shadow curve to enhance the subject texture and shape, for instance, groom tuxedo and wedding gown beading.
There is one tip for improving bride’s skin tone on black and white photography: we can increase the red color bar to lighten the bride’s shadow on her face. To narrowly select a certain grey range, we can make bride eyes brighter and smooth the skin.
Editorial style
You often hear the editorial style phrase in fashion magazines. An editorial photography editing style requests the editor to have a strong sense of aesthetic and profound knowledge of color management. It would soon be a new trend in the future for Melbourne wedding photography.
What is editorial wedding photography style?
To achieve editorial photography’s look and feel, it is not only depending on the post-editing, it also needs the wedding photographer to have a solid knowledge of controlling the lighting as well as posing the wedding couple.
On the wedding day, comparing to a documentary styled wedding photographer, the editorial wedding photographer would give bride and groom subtle directions (not cheesy pose). The editorial photographers are more engaged with his wedding couple during the wedding photo shoots.
The lighting also plays as an important factor. An editorial wedding photographer can get the right feeling and texture of the lighting. The photographer can change lighting lumen and angle by adjusting the windows blind angle or changing bride and groom position for indoor photography.
How to apply editorial look to my wedding photos?
In post work, the editor keeps the wedding photo modern and minimalist.
Recompositing
To keep views focus on the main subject, the post editing work also involving a second creative processing. The editor crops off some unwanted part of the images. Some photos have obstruction such as power point.
Color preset
There is no fixed filter for editorial wedding photography editing style, so it requests the post editor think first and act later. The editor should understand the wedding color theme and get a suitable color enhancement which matches with the couple’s wedding vibes.