I've done a blog like this before over on my pro blog, but wanted to move it over here and join it with my personal blog. I find that editing is down to personal choices a photographer wishes to make. You can come across photographers who leave their images straight out of camera (SOOC) and sometimes you'll get photographers who edit so much they completely alter an image. 

For me, personally, it's not about changing the way a person looks or creating unrealistic memories of the day. I use it to clean, sharpen, brighten and generally give the image a boost. I don't agree with using photoshop to alter body images and the only 'airbrushing' I do is to remove blemishes, smooth out any colours that need correcting and for portraits make eyes sparkle a little. 

This blog post, however, concentrates on removing the unwanted distractions from a photograph. It's really important not to rely on photoshop to fix everything. I never look at a situation and think 'meh, i'll just get rid of that later' but as I love to capture moments naturally, sometimes you just have to snap the image and figure out a way to improve it in post.

As an example of this, here is a shot from a wedding I did back in April 2014. This short time outside the church when the bride's dad was walking her towards the church door is an extremely special moment for the two of them.

The shot below is SOOC - and as you can see there are a number of distractions around (videographer to the right, people passing by, a brightly coloured car in the background.)

This video gives you a rather quick run-through of what I do to get rid of them:

One thing I did during this video that I want to comment on -- the removal of the maid of honour. 

This wasn't a completely necessary option, as she is the bride's sister and is helping her with her dress. I chose to do this because I wanted the overall feeling of the image to be about the Bride and her father. That special time between just the two of them, before he gives her away in front of all their friends and family. By removing the maid of honour just for this one image, I felt it portrayed those emotions more strongly.