A good friend, Ewen, who is a professional photographer has written a great blog post “Your photography …. Finish the job”
His argument is that once you have taken a good photograph then it needs to be finished. Ewen saw one of my images on Twitter and he messaged me saying the following: –
That one tweet led me into the world of the British Tech Network and I joined their Photo League. It is led by Ewen and you submit your monthly photographs and receive constructive comments. I have submitted my first few photographs and already benefited from the professional advice on how not only to compose but finish your image. I was still intrigued about the finishing of the image and so I spent a day with Ewen at his studio. He took me through several simple processes that make your images stand out. A few simple exercises cleaned the “grey crud” from my images and then with some sharpening process I could see that my images immediately benefitted from his advice. Here are a few images which have been processed in Photoshop and they have been enhanced.
My tips from that meeting with Ewen –
- check your exposure,
- add a touch of saturation,
- look at the image and a touch of intelligent sharpening all add up to finishing your image.
Here are a few examples of checking your pictures and finishing them off.
Example 1 – this is a picture taken at Chesterton Windmill before Christmas.
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The following is my attempt at processing 
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This next one is finished by following some simple rules and a bit of creativity.
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These next two are the before and after with a touch of blur.
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……and that picture that first made me realise that there is more to just taking the photograph. Well here it is with a few added touches. 
