Editing Comparison Crested Butte

November 14, 2022 - It’s snowing today, but not enough to be “fun snow.” It will probably all melt by lunchtime. Since there is no right or wrong way to edit a photo, we decided to both edit the same one to see what we did differently. There was no peeking at the other person’s photo while editing.

Here is the original photo.  You might recognize it.  I used a different version in the July 12 post.

Raw File - Crested Butte

The sky is interesting, but the foreground is so dark you can’t see what’s there.  The reason it’s so dark is the sun is coming up on the right, so he exposed for the highlights (so there would be detail in the clouds). I should also point out that raw files are always washed out (flat). We also chose a file that had obvious things that needed editing.

Here is his edited photo.

His Edits

He has brought up the exposure in the foreground and increased the vibrancy in the sky. It was sunrise but in the raw file you can’t really see the color.  If you look back at the unedited version, you can see there is pink in the sky. But only a little hint.

Here is my version.

My Edits

In my version, I have lightened the foreground even more.  I’ve also lightened the sky but that washed the color out, so I had to add some pink back in.  

Here are all three.

His - Raw - Mine

Let us know which you prefer in the comments.