Watch How a Photographer With Nearly 200,000 Subscribers Edits in Lightroom

Watching how others work is one way to improve. Watching how extremely successful people work is an even faster, better way to improve. In this video, watch how a very popular photographer edits images sent to him.

When you see photos you like and feel drawn to, as a photographer one of your natural instincts is almost always to wonder how they got the shot, what gear they might have used, what it probably looked like straight out of camera, and how they edited in post-production. Often these questions you wonder to yourself are to imagine whether you could do the same or not. While I don't think it's a good idea at all to simply copy people's work or their styles, it's always good to see the processes and methods that successful people use to create their work.

In this video, Nigel Danson, who boasts almost 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, walks us through some Lightroom edits he did on images that were sent to him. What's interesting is how he takes such a minimalist approach with his edits. To be honest, it's rather refreshing to see. Often, I feel like photographers can overdo things a little. Of course, if you're trying to get something abstract, then the world is your oyster, but if you're trying to retain is much realism as possible with your edits, sometimes less is more. Danson certainly proves that with his edits here. Check it out and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Iain Stanley's picture

Iain Stanley is an Associate Professor teaching photography and composition in Japan. Fstoppers is where he writes about photography, but he's also a 5x Top Writer on Medium, where he writes about his expat (mis)adventures in Japan and other things not related to photography. To view his writing, click the link above.

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7 Comments

Amazing Nigel. Thanks!

Thank you Nigel. Always good advice.

nice

Nice video and really, in my opinion there should not be too much to do on a photo anyway. Get as much as possible right to start with and the post editing should only enhance what the photographer saw in their mind when making the photo.

To a certain extent, I agree. To a lesser extent, I disagree. If your intent with the final image is to represent it as closely to what you saw, then yes, editing in post should be subtle and polite. However, if you intended to create some fantasmical parallel world image that used the initial exposure as a platform, then all bets are off as far as editing goes. I flip-flop in between. Sometimes, I let the image do the talking. Other times, I let my own weird world of my mind take over in post-production. Depends what your intentions are, in my view

Yeah, that’s fair enough

Great work and the edit tips and process was great! But can we quit with the ignorant bait headliners?

Having 200k followers doesn't mean the artist is more prone to good or bad editing practices any more than kim kardashian having millions means she's a useful member of the human race...

How about "Watch how an accomplished and esteemed Professional Photographer edits in lightroom"