The Almanack #10: Don't overdo it

Ever heard that phrase, "less is more"? I've been thinking about it recently, in the context of photography of all things.

I recently took this shot on the sea during my recent trip to Spain, which I then edited with one of my presets in Lightroom (you can see the comparison below).

This isn't a plug for my presets (though you're more than welcome to buy them ;)), but rather a chance for me to explain why, sometimes, less is in fact more.

You see, a common mistake I see beginner photographers make (myself included) is overdoing it when it comes to editing their photos - most people's instinct is to ramp up the saturation and brightness of an image, however when you do that you'll end up with something like the image below.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad photo - but it doesn't have that subtle wow factor that the first edit had. Interestingly, in that shot I actually desaturated a lot of the colours (like the yellows/reds/blues) to give it that darker, moody look. So in this instance, less was actually better.

If any of you are steak enthusiasts, you can think of this as the difference between cooking something medium rare vs well done - there is such a thing as overcooking, and there is such a thing as over-editing an image.

I'm sure you could apply this framework to multiple walks of like - overtraining in the gym, overworking yourself at a job, overthinking things. So as they say, less is sometimes (not always, because obviously there's nuance) more.

By the way, if any of you are interested in checking out this presets, I'll leave the link here: https://payhip.com/b/Aa2F4 (I used additional preset 02 for those wondering).