Adding Drama to Your Photos.

I have always been amazed on how you can turn a simple, flat looking photo into something very dramatic through editing. I'm still new in photography, I just bought my first DSLR few months back and I remember when I was just starting out, browsing some portraits on the web, I was really impressed at how some of the images looked. I really thought that that was straight out from the camera and if there were an editing involved, I thought it was just a little retouching. Little that I knew that it needed a fairly extensive editing work. After my first few hundred shots, I still couldn't figure out how in the blue heck do i get that look? I played with the settings, retouched and edited and still couldn't get it. Then I decided to go for a journey into the never ending world of "The World Wide Web" for a quest.

Here are two shots from one of my wedding jobs. These are straight out of the camera, with no editing. They look flat don't they?

These next set are after editing. Well these are my shot at the silver look + drama edit. See the differences.

© Nizam Muhamad / Pixoto

© Nizam Muhamad / Pixoto

So how do we get that effect? Upon returning from my journey, after slaying a few dragons, had a fight with a dwarf, a witch tried to turn me into a Human Tom Yam and lost for 3 days in a mysterious jungle, this is what I've learned. One word; EXAGGERATION. This is how I got that look. Lift up the highlights, darken the shadows, smoothen the skin and even blur out the blurred. The result is as shown above and I personally like how the second image (The one on the bottom in the edited set) look!! Well, as fun as all these may sound, one thing we should always remember is; we should know when to stop. Not to over edit.


So where did I learn to edit like this? These 2 videos really helped. It doesn't tell exactly how to get that look but I know these are the methods used. I'm pretty sure of it because I used it.

Do try it out!! Enjoy =)



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