More Photoshop Love: Wedding Photo Edits

I’m betting a lot of brides have looked at their wedding photos, and wished that something had been different in a few shots. Maybe a person was missing, or something was just off a bit. But in this day and age, where our photographers can manipulate just about anything with Photoshop, some of these “photo regrets” can be fixed. Mrs. Nachos even did a great tutorial on how she edited out the people in the background of her trash the dress photos, here.

Now, you may say that this isn’t right, it’s not showcasing your wedding day accurately if changes are made with Photoshop. Which is true (although I think the same could technically be said for standard edits, like adjusting the lighting). But I still thought it would be fun to have a try at manipulating some of our photos (don’t worry, we have full rights) while I watched trashy TV reruns.

Most of these likely won’t make it into our album, but I’m kind of glad I did them anyway! I think this exercise has helped a little with coming to terms with some of the things missing from our photos, like not having a photo of Mr. Cola with my immediate family. It was a bit therapeutic to be able to fix on my computer what I couldn’t fix in real life!

Additionally, I’m sort of picky person, so being able to tweak small things in photos that only I notice has been great. It’s one of the main reasons I wanted us to book a photographer who would give us the rights to our photos. And who knows, your photographer might even be fixing these little nit-picky things without you ever knowing it! Plus, I know lots of photogs do offer additional touch up services, if you too are bothered by little things out of place.

Take for example, I was hot and thirsty after our ceremony, but had to take family pictures right away. In this picture with my sister, my lipstick is starting to come off.

But with a little editing, I've put my lipstick back on.

There was also a stray strand of my bangs blowing up in the breeze in this photo that was bugging me.

But with a couple minutes in Photoshop, poof, it's gone!

Or there were the signs in the hall behind me in this photo that were detracting from the photograph, so away they went.

Even just cropping can do wonders to a photograph! Our first kiss was an important moment for us, but I wanted something a little closer, without our second photographer's hand and the portable speaker in the picture.

With some cropping and editing out the speaker, we now have this great photo.

I was also bothered by the writing on our photographer's bag that I was laying on in this photo. It was just distracting next to my shoulder, and you know how it is when you notice something out of place, and then that's all you can concentrate on when you see the photo!

But with a couple of clicks of the healing brush, it was gone.

So, those were some examples of quick fixes to nit-picky photo regrets. But what about if there was a small detail you wished you'd had, but didn't?

One of the details we didn't end up having was Mr. Cola wearing adorable argyle socks. I'm so in love with the photos of guys with their socks all over the blogs, but we compromised, and he agreed to do some of the equally adorable jumping photos with his groomsmen instead.

But with some editing work, I can still dream about this 'what if' of argyle socks....

I know, I know, that's pretty dang silly!

And I didn't even do a very good job of adding the socks, because I didn't want to spend too much time on a picture that I'll never actually use. But it's a good example of the possibilities with Photoshop that could be used on wedding photos these days.

The main thing I really wanted to try to tackle was something I mentioned at the beginning of this post, to try to get a photo of Mr. Cola with my immediate family, since we didn't take one on our wedding day. However, once you get past small touch ups and decor mock ups, my Photoshop skills are just not that strong.

I tried cutting Mr. Cola out of one picture, and sticking him into the photo with my parents, but the results were laughable. Then I remembered we did have a big group photo with all of my mom's family that I might be able to do something with.

So I cut us out of that photo, and attempted to insert us into another photo with a prettier background. Again, not good results. It looked just like what it was, an obviously a poor Photoshop job, and reminded me of that one Seinfeld episode where George tries to get taken out of his boss's beach picture, but ends up getting his boss added back in, in cartoon form.

{Love those rosy cheeks!}

See? Not cartoons, but obviously we don't belong in this picture, and I was too tired of messing with it to get it any better.

So my next attempt was just to use the big group photo we were already in, and modify the existing background to remove the other people in the original photo. This actually worked a lot better, although it's still nowhere near perfect.

What happened with my family picture, I found to be true for all photos where I tried to add something that wasn't there originally. It just didn't work very well, and I really don't have the skills to pull it off. Which is why I haven't attempted to add my SIL or my sister's long-time boyfriend to the pictures that they're missing from. It's just a lot easier to take objects or people out of photos than to add them.

Like in this photo from our rehearsal, it was quite easy to simply remove the distracting members of our wedding party, so I could have a cute picture with just my DOC and I.

(Two above photos are personal photos)

Anyway, there's a little look at some of the fun I've been having recently with Photoshop! I think it's really such a fun program, and there are so many possibilities for tweaking your wedding photos that it's worth a try if you have the time, photo rights and skills!

Are you a Photoshop fan? If so, do you plan on using it on any of your wedding photos if you find something amiss?

(Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post were taken by Shoot Me Now Photography, and edited by yours truly)