5 Advanced WARNING Signs of OVER-EDITED Photos

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

🌟QUICK QUESTION: What did I miss that has impacted your photo editing?

[@dr.jensmasselmann901]

I often see linear gradients pulled from the sky down over the scenery, affecting the background , e.g . mountains etc.

[@lphilpot01]

This is also a personal / style thing, but so often I see overly-darkened skies typically almost black at the top of the frame. I usually bring the sky down but to me it looks unnatural to have a normally-illuminated scene with extremely dark clouds hovering at the top of the frame. By all means, take advantage of all the mood and texture you've captured in the sky, but a bright-ish scene with very dark clouds is unbalanced to my eye.

[@DigitalPhotoGuru]

When you add contrast in the Tone Curve, you can use the Refine Saturation slider if the image is over-saturated after using the Tone Curve to pump up the contrast.

[@robvercouteren]

Hey there Mark, i think an overlooked but really important factor is using a calibrated monitor. Even a unsignificant monitor can be calibrated. Most often the monitors are set to using very bright whites.

[@NiceShotStudio]

@@MarkDenneyPhoto You inspired e to take some paid classes. Well done.👍

[@Bob_Amaral_Photography]

Love the tip on the mask over the sun and turning down texture, clarity, and dehaze. 90% of my shots are of the sun. This will help. One of those tips where you say to yourself.."Why didn't I think of that?" Great video Mark. Thanks for all you do!

[@MikeGiovinazzo]

excess skin smoothing is perhaps the other over-edited sign I struggeled with.

[@abhijit-sarkar]

What are you talking about - making skin look like a pair of polished dress shoes is great.

[@alanbudge]

What a great tip at 1:55 holding the shift key and double clicking to give suggested amount. Must play around with this. Another little gem Mark, thank you.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad to do it my friend!

[@pedrosanchez4035]

@@MarkDenneyPhoto Best lightroom tip I have heard in a while!! How did I not know that?

[@Scyth3934]

Nearly 1000 hours in lightroom and I didn't know that shift-auto trick!

[@danielmcgowan9534]

Shift Auto? Now I have to watch the video.

[@the_rat_run]

I'm happy to note that I'm not guiilty of any of the issues you brought up in the video, Mark. Not that I'm a whizz, only that so many of the Pro photographer channels I view create images that look so unreal, I do my best to not bake things too hard... If the photo looks like I remember when taking it, I stop! Great watching though, as always. (I loved the tip that softened the sun though!)

[@hnurminen]

I love your props - the Maxell VHS tape and the Walkman. Hits big time with someone who was a teenager in the 80s.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Same here!

[@rayasiala9375]

Absolutely wonderful knowledge again! I am notorious for over editing and over baking my photos. This is definitely gonna give me some things to think about and try and apply on a regular basis. Thank you for posting this!

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@sveeny]

Great video! I'm not surprised that many of the classic over editing mistakes have to do with overly increased dynamic range and detail contrast. I still get the urge sometimes when editing. Sometimes you need to stare at a blank wall (or at least away from your screen) and then look at your work again to realize you went a little over board 😀

[@PhucketThugLife]

I could agree with this up to the last section about contrast. Contrast to my eyes really affects the mood and it's hard to achieve certain moods if everything looks neutral.

[@Cocc0nuttt0]

I regularly see awfully over edited photos on Flickr and such get thousands of likes despite obvious and jarring issues - white halos, fried HDR colors, etc. I don't get it.

[@larrydzemorsky1777]

Omg flickr 😅 glad to hear it exists after this all years. So, people go there for the entertainment, not art.

[@roglar]

The average person like the auto HDR crap produced by smartphones, and uses it as a benchmark for how a photo should look like. For example my mother, bless her, thinks her rather old iPad produces better photos than my Sony and Canon full frame cameras with quality glass.

[@curtsuneson6161]

​@@roglarYour mother would be correct

[@JasonEkonomakos]

​@@curtsuneson6161 in no way does an iPad shooting the same exact scene take a better image, stop trying to be contrarian

[@Chulagial]

I also see it all the time. I may post a highly saturated photo made by a phone on my private page and get a lot of likes but on a photography group get a lot criticism. 😝

[@rustyschackleford5800]

Do your sharpening in Photoshop. That way you can adjust it, and prevent the halos in the first place. First copy the background layer. Filter->Other->High Pass. Adjust the pixel size, and set the blend mode to Soft/Vivid Light.

[@OctoFloatRepair]

This is really interesting, I started taking pictures about a year ago and I really don't do any of the things you do with your editing! I use lightroom in a completely different way, mainly focusing on color grading & brightening since I take nearly all my pictures with a negative exposure compensation. The pictures you used as examples are very dramatic, otherworldly pictures while I end up taking more opportunisitic landscape photography street photography. I usually keep my sharpening at default or reduce it to 0, never really like playing with dehaze, clarity, or texture. What I like doing is going to the individual color saturation sliders and starting each at -100, and then slowly bringing back color from red to magenta one by one, focusing on highlighting colors that greatly contribute to the image, and trying to keep the amount of those colors in the image between 3 and 5. It's interesting to see different uses of lightroom and different problems people face in the same hobby!

[@jtkyber]

Maxing out the saturation and vibrancy to set the color balance is such a good tip! I'm gonna start doing that

[@janineedmondson8308]

Excellent tutorial - one thing I noted is - you can in basics (highlight, white, shadow, etc) you can hold down the option key - which turns your screen white - and if you see any blown out/dark areas you can slide the bar left/right until you can’t see them or they are reduced as much as possible. Not sure if I’m explaining this right but it’s an additional thing for basics (also works on the sharpening area - masks)

[@jonathaneilert144]

I have been reflecting on my editing lately and feeling like I am overdoing it. Thanks for the confirmation. Guilty as charged:).

[@jerrykita8767]

Great information, Mark. I think I've broken myself of these bad habits (mostly!), but this is a great checklist of reminders. Good stuff to remember while I edit.

[@Kitcatkiss12]

Thanks for these! I appreciate these types of videos. Very helpful.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear!

[@PatrickRosenbalm]

Good advice. I remember when dynamic range and over boosting shadows were the thing on DPReview. Lots of fighting and trolling over it. To the point I deleted my account and never looked back. I'm glad to see things have changed since then.

[@brianalpert2383]

I like to reduce shadows and highlights to the point that you make things visible without creating a phony HDR look. You can get away with reducing the shadows and highlights by a significant amount if you simultaneously move the black slider to the left to create a black point and the whites slider to the right to create a white point. For me, doing that usually negates the need to increase the contrast.

[@3twelves]

Thank you, Mark. I always love watching your tutorials.

[@Centauri27]

These are great tips Mark! I can really identify with the color balance and crushed highlights. Great tip on how to get a "realistic" color balance, I gotta try that for sure! 👍

[@lyndarodig8707]

Thanks Mark - I learned something new again!

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad to hear it!

[@NK-vs3tv]

Great video, thank you! I found tip number three especially helpful. Yes, I usually struggle a lot with the sky and sun in landscape photos.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear it was helpful!

[@williamsullivan3967]

I found this super helpful. I’ve very green when it comes to editing but little by little, I’m learning. Thank you!!

[@michaelt7320]

Thanks, Mark, for another great and informative video, especially for solving White Balance issues and editing bright and sunny skies.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad to do it!

[@dodgybob]

G'day Mark, Thanks again for imparting some wisdom on this subject. Ive recently been revisiting shots I took over 5 years ago when I started out with LR, and boy did I get some results from my inital "over processed" edits.. Cheers

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Happy to hear you enjoyed it!

[@DaveKingMusic]

All great tips!

[@michele_di_chito]

Hi Mark, over saturation can be another common mistake

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Very true!

[@scottthompson8561]

Thanks, Mark. Great advice, as usual. The biggest problem I have when editing my photos is knowing when I am finished. I start and stop, come back and edit some more. Then I get frustrated and start all over again from the beginning. How do you decide you are finished with an edit?

[@nonexman]

Your question, my answer: taking time to edit photos that should not be saved in the first place. One can edit a good photo to be a great photo, but if the photo isn't good to begin with (no obvious subject, off balance, etc.), delete or move on. (I admit I occasionally keep these images because something of interest is in the photo; it's just not a good photo. I'm delightedly proud of observing your five points: I passed! However, your point about no shadows: when I started doing HDR (some 20-ish years ago), I removed the shadows left and right because I could!!! A photographer friend looked at one of my photos and said: "where's the shadows??" That solved that then and there!. HDR is good. Shadows are good. Both together are even better! :>)

[@Batch00]

This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! I recently edited a bunch of holiday photos and I was concerned about over-editing some of them! I'm surprised how few of these mistakes I've made, especially as a fair few were sunset pictures taken straight into the sun!

[@tessadagnely2201]

I like this video! It’s obvious that I did all these « over » in my photographs, and now I’m very careful with that. But sometimes…still not enough.

[@lucasperrin7049]

Very interesting video. It’s always important to question yourself and not go to far in my editing. Thanks for your advices.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Happy to do it!

[@staiain]

The most unpleasant thing I see people sometimes do by mistake is when clipped highlights (like a sun) are moved below 255 and it becomes a shade of gray

[@Jefferson-ly5qe]

Yeah not a big fan of that either. Only time I kinda get that is people emulating a film look where the film may not have totally white highlights.

[@richardhurst3368]

Good Video, it certainly is a learning process & very subjective. I found since printing my photos my editing has changed I think for the better. Enjoy your videos.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks Richard!

[@davidwhite3296]

Thanks, Mark. Very helpful - as ever!

[@sueowen3891]

I learnt such a lot from this video, thanks for explaining things so clearly.

[@anthonyroffe5628]

Great video that brings up some great points that we have all been guilty of I suspect ( and probably still are to some extent)

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@richardduckworth859]

Super video Mark. Thanks so much.

[@jimgernon7452]

Maybe the most helpful video of yours for me. I use Luminar Neo and Affinity Photo 2 but video really hit the mark. Thanks

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks Jim!

[@mc5869]

Masking the sun - great tip Mark 👌🏻

[@Chris_2023_]

Another awesome video Mark! Thank you!

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks Chris!

[@DebiSenGupta]

Very useful. Thank you

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear!

[@timfarmer5535]

Always great info, thanks. I see the sun issue a lot and the over sharpening with the outline. If I have a print I'm selling and it's going large, I will go though with a stamp-darken and stamp-lighten to remove that in PS. It can take some time but I find it is worth it. In May I was able to capture the Aurora at the St. Louis Gateway Arch and I had a lot of issues with those lines and the trees. I think I spent two hours just cleaning that part up. Totally worth the time.

[@ericprouzet3851]

Thanks for these excellent pieces of advice. I will put them in practice asap!

[@Art-nh8wf]

Thanks for a much needed video for me. Mostly crushing the highlights.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad it was helpful!

[@vladconstantinminea]

I would also like to add that these edits might look sometimes good on a screen, but try to print them and the result would be 10 times worse.

[@jamesbartek6230]

Nice presentation and summation here Mark. Again. 📸 🙂

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks James!

[@dr.jensmasselmann901]

Great, as usual Mark! You adress topics in a clear, interesting and easy-to-take-home way that really differs from the redundant content of so many other KZbinrs in the field. For me same quality and style as Simon D'Entremont.... Thanks a lot!

[@susanfirth2279]

Great video and tips Mark.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks Susan!

[@turnipthebeet7120]

I feel attacked.😂 Great video! Thank you!

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Hahahh!

[@laurencebertrand-rispal4894]

thank you so much ! it will be very useful

[@arohila]

Very helpful tips thanks

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks so much!

[@nerdnam]

Thanks for this excellent vid. I see you have a MacBook Pro. I just recently realized that the MP has a lot of display settings that impact my photography work. For instance you can turn off the automatic adjustments, change the white balance, and set a permanent white point. Maybe a video on that would good?

[@robertavery8002]

Very helpful tips -many thanks Mark.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad to do it Robert!

[@D0209962]

My pet hate is wonky horizons. So easy to eradicate in post processing, yet so surprisingly common!

[@dtriverside8559]

I agree in general but if you look at the very wonky horizons behind Mona Lisa, how much does it really matter?😮

[@D0209962]

@@dtriverside8559 As I have never noticed, you have a very good point!

[@aps-pictures9335]

That first technique can work incredibly well if used in the right context - I’ve a stunning couple of landscape photos - also seen it used well in some portrait/wedding styles for a cinematic look. Would I use it for most of my photos? No. But it’s good to know!

[@MartinB0]

cool, the sun mask trick is perfect, thank you

[@waynejones1054]

Useful advice. Many thanks.

[@allanduff7234]

Really helpful instruction, thank you!

[@markjones127]

I do a lot of hiking, wild camping and mountain running so hang out a lot in specialist groups for those activities and 90% of the pictures posted in those groups have images with clarity through the roof, it really annoys me when an awful photo gets loads of positive comments, I once made the mistake of trying to give constructive criticism but it just fell on deaf ears and I got attacked and called a photo snob, so I just keep my mouth shut these days! 🤣

[@DanielSymphonies]

Good tips! and very clearly presented. I probably wouldn't really call setting a poor white balance "over-editing" though

[@RikMaxSpeed]

Helpful video - many of the editing tools in Lightroom/Photoshop encourage over-editing and lead to uncanny valley photographs.

[@waesyp]

After years, I've come to realize that the best result in basic panel is to start from a base of shadows +30 and highlights -30 to bring back details in a natural way imo. Then I use masking tools for specific areas. In a way, social networks have made over-edited photos the norm.

[@hasselhoff3379]

adding lightrooms grain is my personal pet peeve. There are tons of great grain and noise overlays that can be used and look less generic.

[@MagnitudeReviews]

I'm definitely guilty of just dropping my highlights to -100. I do it all the time. Arguably too much. But I do like the the sun texture tip, never thought of that before.

[@DigitalPhotoGuru]

Sharpening is a huge factor. I alway set the radius to the lowest point (0.5) so the sharpening doesn't extend too far from the edges. Not having a heavy hand with the amount and using masking are to me, key factors in applying the proper amount of sharpening to an image. How much detail do you crank in when you sharpen your images, Mark?

[@benlewis3682]

Amazing video thank you

[@joonatanrimpilainen637]

About the shadows, I feel like the first river image looked like some fairy land with shadows upped all the way. And I liked the look of it! So I feel like it is okay to make images "weird and unnatural" if you feel like that looks good to you, if the realistic look is not the thing you are aiming for.

[@marsmith7]

Thanks, I learned a lot!

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear!

[@NiceShotStudio]

This was a good video. Found it helpful.

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Awesome!

[@Joenah5]

…I kinda like the overly defined sky’s though lol. Like the example where you had the, as you put it, “crunchy” sun was my favorite for that image.

[@Itslikeimsayin]

Another one is trying to make something out of nothing with the dehaze slider. It can make a boring sky more interesting but can also quickly go way too far.

[@vickiBRAUNAGEL]

I appreciate your tips. How about tips to avoid over saturation? I know I love color and frequently have to reduce the vibrance or saturation when I go back and review the edited photo later. Thanks.

[@GeorginaEllmann]

Thank you for your tutorials they are beneficial

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear!

[@MarioDuch]

I have to admit, I love crushing my highlights down :D That sun tip that you shared will be very useful in my next photos! Btw, I got to ask, was the Aroll shot on an iPhone using Apple Log?

[@chantallabelle8571]

Very interesting! I really see my self when you talk about over sharpening! :-). What I also have difficulty to adjust is green ! I have difficulty to adjust it correctly. I often feel that it is too blue. But I always have a hard time to adjust it correctly. Too yellow, too magenta, and so on. :-) very good video as usual !

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

[@sarojkumarmanna4148]

Subject is very elaborative & help me to understand post processing mistake ...Except Light Room Any other editing software have these type of facility ??

[@drawerganizer785]

It's important to have good global contrast. Light areas need to be light and dark areas need to be dark. Shadows are an important part of any image's aesthetic and good lighting creates good shadows. I've seen a lot of photos with the shadows removed, and if you squint your eyes, it's a flat field of color. You can lighten the shadows to get more contrast in dark areas, but it often throws the look of the image as a whole off.

[@randall.chamberlain]

Fantastic advice

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thanks Randall!

[@creativelensart]

Helpful tips

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Thank you!

[@yolandepianet7800]

Sounds like you speak about my editing work process 😂

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Hahahah!

[@somnathguria754]

Very very helpful video. ...

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

Great to hear!

[@rice_frying_shrimp]

Part of why I work with presets even after years of editing experience is because they keep me in check. I know that there was a very purposeful idea behind those visuals and either I applied them wrong or I tuned them wrong when something starts looking out of the line but the fix at that point is fairly simple. Is it a crutch? Sure. Does my photography suffer from it? Not really because I use it very consciously and carefully.

[@gregtowns549]

Yep, guilty of all 5 once upon a time.Plus oversaturation and over sharpening.Better now, although every now and then I'll overcook a pic. Say a few choice words and hit reset😵‍💫

[@ianmcclue65]

you're clock has stopped.

[@IljaVladimirovitsj]

Your*

[@Robert063]

Your*

[@R3fuge]

No, you are!

[@YISTECH]

Yor'ue ​@@Robert063

[@DominikMarczuk]

Oversaturation. I don't know what it is that people find so attractive in unnaturally saturated colours but it's all over social media nowadays. Nothing's that saturated in real life. It especially bothers me in landscapes.

[@romanpul]

‘bright colors blind the eyes’. Oversaturation looks flashy and grab attention. It’s an easy way to make your pictures interesting on first glance. That’s why that effect is baked into most smartphone cameras these days

[@xllifi]

3:06 Can someone explain why all «pro» photographers set shutter speed to values that completely remove waves? IMO that looks worse than if I took a photo with my 300$ phone on default settings. Maybe this doesn't apply to this exact picture because it's a lake, but when you take picture of a sea, why do it?

[@SilverSpoon_]

10:00 magical wand. oh god. I give up.

[@Xo1ot1]

I have a commercial calendar here from a very good photographer and even some of his photos have halos on mountain edges.

[@DobromirManchev]

We went to the Faroes and Iceland last month too! When exactly were you there? Maybe we crossed paths somewhere :) (I wish i had taken such great shots as you... the weather wasn't all that great when we were there :( )

[@Powerstroke98]

Great information Mark, thanks! Question, I tend to use my iPhone for many images these days, whether it be Landscape or Portraits, and the odd video. Unsure if you use your phone much, but on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which as the feature to use RAW (which I use on my Nikon) but I tend to just use .jpg as I find they still edit out quite well. Now, as far as I know, I don't have the feature to bring up a histogram (which I use on my Nikon) thus knowing exactly where to go with the editing numbers is hard to know, so I just go by what I 'feel' is correct. I wonder if you might at some point show editing on a cell/smartphone at some point? With the smartphones having better lenses, I'm finding they capture low light exceedingly well, and the editing process is available of course, but thoughts on going about it, might help many of us get a better end result? Thanks again!

[@daviesmia]

I struggle a bit with the tone curve, I've surrendered and typically use the medium contrast auto botton

[@analogmusings9888]

i always try that i have just enough shadow to get more depht and just enough hilight that its not blown out. color on the other hand is subjective

[@toruisalive5499]

Remember that this video is teaching you how to control your art. But the decision is still yours. Edit your photos the way you like it. Sometimes edit an image and just take a sip of water half way through to take a shower break, think about it in calm and take a second thought of how you imagine the final image to look like in your head.

[@ilesmic]

I am a color guy and it took me years to not really crank the vibrance and saturation-- Now I may move the vibrance up to 10-20 and reduce the saturation a bit like negative 5-10. Don't get me wrong my photos still have a lot of color but I shoot a lot of colorful sunrises and flowers here in the Pacific NW.

[@soarpurpose]

A lot of it comes down to personal taste. People tend to go overboard with saturation.

[@JonAnderhub]

Thanks Now I have to go back and fix all my "fixed" photos. LOL

[@MarkDenneyPhoto]

😂😂😂

[@geimfarinn]

Feels like an advert for Lightroom