Architectural Photography: Post - Production.

Digital post-production requires its own form of mastery. It goes beyond a little sleight of hand and Photoshop tricks. It demands the same taste, nuance, and discrimination as composition and lighting. It is as critical to the final product as the shoot itself. I do all my own post-work because I believe the personal care will distinguish my work and mostly because I love the meditative, hyper-focused zone my mind settles into within twenty minutes of starting. If your imagination is as active and overstimulated as mine, you’ll understand why that’s an awesome place to be.

My rates cover all of the provisions to make an image that lives up to my rigid standards. This includes color correction, exposure blending, cleaning up of basic callouts (outlets, debris, exit signs), distortion corrections, contrast, saturation etc. But I understand that some projects might need to budget for a little extra TLC in post.

It is not uncommon for me to get requests for extensive and specific Photoshop miracles under pressing deadlines. The kind that can sprout gray hair overnight! My proven, consistent process allows me to maintain the flexibility and creative problem-solving necessary to manage all the lovely surprises you want to throw my way.

Photoshop is also a crucial component of my lighting process. I often have several photos stacked on top of each other, each with a different part of the frame lit with flash or LED lighting. This allows me to fine-tune my lighting and then decide how much ambient light vs flash I want in a particular area within the frame. It’s both art and science. Some scenes need to rely heavily on flash to pop, while others benefit more from the natural lighting allowed by the careful and thoughtful design of the space.

Sometimes photos need to go to press immediately, even if certain parts of a building are still under construction. Whether it’s replacing entire backgrounds, doing some landscaping, painting walls, or extending floors, the samples below will provide a glimpse into the miracles you can expect me to handle.

All post-production correspondence occurs in a client revision program called Frame.io. It allows me to upload proofs from the day, so you can select the images you wanted to be edited, and it has easy, seamless tools for providing real-time feedback and comments on images as I upload new versions. This will also be where you’ll download your final assets once everything is approved and signed off on and invoices have been paid.

Below are some before/after samples. The before images are RAW files straight out of the camera with just natural lighting conditions. The “After” files contain the final product of my lighting skills and any necessary work in Photoshop.