You clicked the shutter and captured an excellent image. Great! After some retouching, your image is perfect. You can publish or print it, and then you're done. That is the usual process for every photoshoot.

However, there are times when you capture a nice pose, excellent composition, and a pleasant expression, but the lighting could be better. In these cases, the photoshoot feels like a disappointment. Ideally, you want to achieve stunning images straight out of the camera and enhance them in post-production. Unfortunately, that's not always possible.

I grabbed my camera and photographed my friend, Khaled AlBader. I really liked his expression, but the lighting was so poor that the image wasn't usable. To fix this, I had to correct the lighting in the picture. I accomplished this through dodging and burning, a technique that has been around since the early days of photography. Nowadays, using a Wacom tablet makes it much easier and more accessible for everyone to apply this technique digitally.

Compare the image before and after to observe the differences.

The image is now much more visually compelling. Dodging and burning can significantly alter your photo.

The Gear I Used

I hope you learned a lot from this blog. If you are interested in a one-on-one training session, drop me a direct message on my Instagram account.