Editing your sports photography photos in post -processing is an essential step in any photographer’s workflow. You can make a good photo a great one with some slight edits. Of course you can also overdo it as well and ruin the photo. Balance is always key in editing. That is why I came up with a couple of post-processing tips to help you along your journey into sports photography.
Fix Your Horizons
The latest trends by young photographers and even teams is posting photos with crooked horizons. It drives me crazy. Horizons are never crooked; they’re always straight. The lack of straight horizons can be attributed to two things, not caring about if the horizon is straight or not and hand holding the camera in such a way that the photographer uses the back LCD screen to “see” the shot.
Field goal posts, foul poles, glass around the ice in hockey etc. should never be crooked.
Can crooked photos be an artistic expression? Of course it can, but if you’re on a photo assignment by a wire service or freelancing for a team etc. and you send in a crooked photo, more often than not that will preclude you from getting additional work.
Correct the Exposure
While the interpretation of what a properly exposed photo should look like, there should be no debate that a photo that is severely over and under exposed is unacceptable. There is going to be instances where the shadows have to be black and highlights blown out, but never should the whole photo be that way.
There are photographers who expose for highlights and there are some that expose for shadows. What you decide to expose for, make sure you properly expose for them.
If the photo is a bit underexposed it is possible to recover the photo, but if the photo is overexposed there may be a chance you won’t be able to recover the lost detail in the blown out highlights. Do with that as you will.
Crop for Impact
I think cropping is one of the most important edits you can make to a photo. It really can make or break a photo in my opinion. Out of all my post-processing tips, this should be the gold star in terms of what to truly keep an eye out for.
There isn’t a one crop to rule them all magic wand that you can use, but you can use the magic wand in Photoshop for other things. Wire service photographers have to crop their photos to a certain specification. Instagram has their own sizes you have to crop you photo down to to ensure the users see what you want them to see. And that is why cropping is the most import edit when it comes not only to sports photography, but photography in general.
If you have a great shot of some action downfield but there is a lot of negative space around it, you can crop the photo down the bring the action to fill the frame more than the negative space. You want to fill the frame so the action is in your face unless you’re shooting for a magazine spread and you need that negative space to put copy over.
Just remember not to crop off limbs or your photo will look awkward with missing feet or an arm.
Adjust the Color
Now when I say adjust the colors that doesn’t mean take the saturation slider and drag it all the way to 100. With a lot of stadiums and arenas using a mix of natural and artificial light, the white balance and colors can be off from time to time. You don’t want your photo to be too warm where the colors are a bit more yellowish-green or too cold where its too blue. You want the whites to be white.
How do you adjust the colors properly? Some photographers bring a gray card to the arena or stadium and take a photo of that and use that in post to get the correct white balance setting. If you don’t have a gray card you can also find the grayest pixel in your photo and click the eye dropper tool for that to set the white balance and tweak from there.
Another tip to remember is if in your camera you’re shooting sRGB but importing it as AdobeRGB then there will be some color issues as RGB gamut differ between profiles. If you shoot in sRGB then you should import and edit the photos in the sRGB gamut. And if you move between Lightroom and Photoshop make sure the color profiles are the same for both. It could look great in Lightroom and when you go into Photoshop it’s warmer than it was in Lightroom.
Avoid Presets and Actions
I guess I should clarify that there is nothing wrong with you creating presets and actions for your photos. You have a certain style or aesthetic and by creating actions or presets based on that style, you can speed up your post-processing time.
Now if you bought every preset pack on Instagram that looks incredible, please know that those actions and presets look amazing on the photos it was intended for and not yours. You will spend more time adjusting the preset or action to make it look how it was intended on your photo and you will get frustrated when your photo doesn’t turn out the way the sample photo did that persuaded you to buy the preset or action pack.
A lot of those presets and actions samples you see advertised are made to make them look amazing for that specific photo. Don’t be fooled that those presets and actions are made for every photo because they’re not.
Keep it Authentic
With the advancements in Photoshop and Lightroom, especially with generative fill and AI, it’s easy to think you can start “removing” things from the photo to make it more appealing. The photo will start to lose it’s authenticity if you start removing everything you deem distracting in the frame. You can’t say you capture the moment when what was in that moment is removed.
And if you want to work for wire agencies, removing anything in the photo is a big no no. Wire agencies want nothing more than a crop, straight horizons and slight exposure adjustments. Just some food for thought if you want to pursue that avenue of work and like to use AI for your photos to remove things.
These are just a few post-processing tips to help you get you started. With sports photography, it’s important to try not to make drastic changes during post. Authentic is better than seeing a photo that you know was heavily manipulated.
Feel free to send me other post-processing tips you may have on my Instagram page!