Every photograph tells a story—but not every image begins ready for the spotlight. That’s where a professional photographer’s skill in correction and retouching comes in. With the right eye and the right tools, a photo that feels flat, dull, or just “OK” can be transformed into something vibrant, polished, and memorable. Adjustments to lighting, color, composition, and detail can elevate an image from ordinary to extraordinary—bringing out the best in both the picture and the story behind it.
What I’m talking about is the difference between taking a photo and making a photo. Let me show you what I mean and how I bring out the best in architecture.
The camera sees things differently than your eye - above is the interior as my camera sees it. Time to go to work.
Above I have the room closer to what I want but you see the right side is too bright. The picture just doesn’t feel right. What I do now is mask off each section of the photo and work on it in pieces. Photoshopping some areas, color balancing others, lightening, darkening etc.
In the final photo I’ve color corrected and light balanced the entire room plus added a fire in the fireplace for an added element of interest. People will look at this photo and think - what a lovely room. This photo illustrates the difference between taking a picture and making one.
The photo above is almost ready to go but if you look closely you see three people in the far corner and a folded table leaning against the pink wall. Small details, but details make a difference, so those have to go. Great photos look great because the photographer was sweating the small stuff.
The next photo illustrates a problem I often face with architectural photography. My client wants the entire building but when I walk across the street as far as I can go, I can’t capture the entire building. It’s too close. I switched to a wide-angle lens to capture the whole building and a bit of the sky, but now it is distorted.
Below, I have reduced the glare off the building’s upper floors and removed the paper window covering on the left-hand windows at the bottom. I’ll also remove the streetlight or crop it out.
In the final photo above I’ve corrected the lens distortion, fixed the aspect ratio and brought the buildings to vertical. Narrow streets and tall buildings are a challenge for architectural photographers.
Below I am dealing with a very difficult underlit interior. Supplemental lighting wouldn't work in this space, so I'll have to make the shot work with editing. The interior is dark, while the exterior window lets in too much light.
Below, I’ve brought more light into the room, but in doing so, I had to mask out the window on the right to make it darker, allowing you to see what’s outside and balance the external and internal lighting. Once again, attention to detail - having done that, the two lights on the right in front of the window now look like they are turned off.
I mask out the lights and brighten them to match the rest of the lights and do a final light balancing of the room. Below you see a finished photo that looks right to us, but one that a camera could never capture on its own.
I often explain to clients that an architectural photographer does not take pictures, they make pictures. With the examples above I think you begin to see my point. Composing the photo and clicking the shutter is only part of photography. What happens after you take the photo is where the magic happens.
If you are a developer, property manager, or architect with a great building that needs extraordinary pictures, give me a call. I can help.