If you are self-taught at photography like me you might eventually notice that, over time, you seem to be getting better. It’s not immediately obvious but a look back of old stuff can illicit some eye-rolls and “what was I thinking?”.
While doing all this introspection, I also missed the fact that I was also getting better at processing images too. Don’t think I’ll ever be all that good at it ( no patience for it) but I have definitely got better.
To test this, I picked a set of images from the past – images from Venice, some as old as 2010 – and went back through them to see:
- which ones I had picked to edit previously
- how I had edited them
I had always assumed that, across two Venice trips, I hadn’t really managed to get any good photos. Turns out they were a bit better than I thought. The difference? I can see the edits better than I could then. Also, I have always tended to one pass of a set of images and then immediately move on to whatever was next.
New tools doubtless help – the images below were all edited using the DxO Nik Collection – which I didn’t have back in 2010. As I now use these tools every week, I understand what they can do.
So, as your photography progresses, assume your editing is too – go back and see what you can do with the ones you previously overlooked.
Here is a gallery of Venice photos that I didn’t even bother editing previously. I’ll be doing this again.
