Street Photography Post Processing Guide - How to Make Your Images Stand Out

Table of Contents:

• Introduction

• How Much Should You Edit Street Photography Images?

• Recommended Software for Photography Post-Processing

• Step 1: A Look at the RAW File

• Step 2: Making Lightroom Edits

• Step 3: Bringing into Photoshop

• Step 4: Final Changes on Lightroom Mobile

• Useful Tips & Tricks for Image Post-Processing

Introduction:

On one of my recent walks around Sheung Wan, I happened to snap one of my favorite street photography shots in the area - a photo of an elderly shopkeeper taking a cigarette break at the front of his stall. The shot (shown below) was taken at the hip, resulting in a tilted, underexposed image that had some promise, but would need a fair bit of post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop to get to a good level. After posting the photo on Reddit, I had a few users enquiring about the settings of the original photo and the amount of post-processing that had gone into it to achieve the final result. 

In this article, I’ll use the original image to discuss in a bit more detail about how I edited the photo, what kind of post-processing I’d recommend for street photography, what software is best for photo editing street shots, how you can touch up your photos to improve on the RAW image, and what common mistakes you should avoid both in general, and more specifically in editing street shots.

How Much Should You Edit Street Photography Images?

Before we dive into the editing process, I’d like to clarify what I consider to be acceptable editing for street photography. Please note this is my personal opinion - feel free to edit your photos in whichever way you wish - I make these comments only as a suggestion, focusing more specifically on applications for street photography over any other type of photography.

Obviously with street photography, there is a heavy emphasis on capturing ‘real moments’, particular instances in time that can’t be repeated or replicated. They focus on an instant, showing a point in time of significance to the photographer, the subjects, or the audience and, in the interest of preserving the realism of the moment itself, I am against heavy editing that may alter or detract from the original photograph. Here’s a list of what I deem acceptable and unacceptable post-processing steps for street photography images.

Acceptable Edits to Street Photography Images

• Cropping

• Fixes in Lens Distortion & Alignment

• Dodging and burning to highlight or reduce emphasis on a particular area of the image

• Changing hues & saturation

• Tone curve adjustments

• Clarity & sharpness adjustments

• Removal of small defects that otherwise detract from the overall image

Unacceptable Edits to Street Photography Images

• Use of AI to remove or alter entire chunks of the image

• Insertion of any subjects that weren’t in the original photo to begin with

• Any major alterations to key subjects through AI tools or other means

To clarify what I mean about small defects - a small piece of trash on the floor can be cleaned up, but the deletion of an entire person in the background of the photo would be a step too far. It’s worth noting that plenty of photography competitions will also disqualify entrants who have used the removal tool even in basic scenarios. Please check the rules in detail for any competition you enter to avoid having your image disqualified for use of removal or AI tools.

Recommended Software for Photography Post-Processing

Lightroom Classic/Mobile

I personally prefer the classic version of Lightroom as the controls seem to be more comprehensive. I’d recommend using the mobile version as a final editing program before posting on social media, as you’ll get closest to what your image will look like on most mobile screens. I tend to avoid making any big edits on Lightroom mobile, preferring to save it for last minute exposure adjustments to take into account brightness and contrast for mobile phones. The majority of edits can be completed in Lightroom, including all of the main lighting adjustments, color adjustments, and lens and perspective corrections. 

Photoshop

Depending on just how much editing needs to be done, you may want to edit the image in Photoshop for further enhancements. I tend to use Photoshop to remove minor distractions such as dirt on the floor, smudges on the lens, or bits of rubbish that may divert the eye. I also use it for more specific dodging and burning to make the final image pop. Finally, I often add a bit of Orton effect where needed to give a slight glow to the image. I’d recommend downloading the most recent version of Photoshop to ensure you have the best functionality with which to edit your photo. 

Now, let’s look at the example photo and go through the steps I took to produce the final version. 

Step 1: Taking the RAW Image

Here we have the out of camera image of a shopkeeper taking a cigarette break in front of a goods store in Sheung Wan. This image was taken on a Leica Q2 (with a fixed 28mm Summilux lens) at aperture F4.5 and a shutter speed of 1/125s. As I was shooting from hip height, I cranked up the aperture setting to guarantee that the subject would be in focus. I also shot on multi-shot mode and reset the focus each time to ensure I would have at least one image that would be in focus - the Leica autofocus can be a bit hit and miss, so I’d rather have hundreds of shots with a few in focus than have a few with none in focus.

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Let’s get into the editing.

Step 2: Making Lightroom Edits

That’s much better. You can see that the above image has corrected a lot of the flaws of the RAW image, including cropping and alignment, exposure, and color. For the basic edits, I’ve take a screenshot of the Lightroom editing panel that shows global adjustments to the image.

Main Adjustments to the Image in Lightroom

This includes exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows, clarity and saturation.

The next step after global edits is to add in a bunch of filters to enhance the subject and take the focus off any distractions in the background that could divert the eye. You can see in the image below I’ve added a number of filters - these include:

1. Linear gradient filters around the edges of the image to decrease exposure.

2. Radial gradient filters at the centre of the image and over the subject to increase exposure.

3. Subject filters to highlight the man in the front of the shop.

Here’s a rough guide of how the filters look:

A mixture of linear, radial and subject filters serve to highlight and shadow parts of the image for focus.

Step 3: Bringing in to Photoshop

In Photoshop you have many tools at your disposal to enhance the image even further. Please note that this software is going to be the one that you’ll need to show the most restraint in, especially with new features such as Generative AI and the Remove tool. The aim, at least in my opinion, is to enhance the image without altering it, making changes that improve the overall moment without drastic changes. As mentioned above, certain photography competitions are very strict about the use of removal and AI tools, so if in doubt, be sure to check the terms and conditions of the photography site to avoid any disqualifications or disputes further down the line.

Here’s the list of enhancements that have been made in Photoshop:

1. Further dodging and burning (using tone curves and masking).You can see the old man now pops more and the boxes at the front have been made slightly darker.

2. Removed floor stain. This was my personal preference - I didn’t like how the dark stain on the floor detracted from the subject and, while it’s not a big deal, I wanted to remove it.

3. Orton Effect. If you don’t know what this is there are some great YouTube tutorials that show how it works and what it adds to the image. In the image above you can see it in the glow of the lamps and bulbs - it adds a dreamy quality that really helps to enhance the atmosphere in the image.

Step 4: Final Changes in Lightroom Mobile

If you’re posting on social media, I would include this final step in your workflow. This is because editing on your desktop or iPad will look very different to the final result on your mobile phone screen. Once you’ve transferred the image to your mobile, make the last tweaks in Lightroom Mobile, crop for socials, and you can post. I bumped up the exposure slightly more to get the final photo below.

Useful Tips & Tricks for Image Post-Processing

For anyone new to post-processing using Lightroom and Photoshop, I’ve compiled a list of useful tips and tricks that can help with using the applications and getting the best results in your editing.

• Name your files properly. I still fail to do this regularly and it makes finding and sorting the images much more difficult.

• Global adjustments first. Before you jump into filters, be sure to correct the basics.

• Use presets for consistency, but don’t be bound by them. A lot of photographers end up not getting the best out of their images as they get stuck to a certain style or color scheme. Avoid this by being flexible with your presets.

• Don’t go overboard. There’s a temptation to over edit, making the image look too sharp, too saturated or unsaturated, and with too much or too little clarity. Understand that these tools are meant to be enhancements, not overall edits.

• To avoid going overboard, edit the image over a period of 2-3 days. The cardinal rule here is to come back to an edit over the next day or so to look at it with fresh eyes. It can be very easy to stare at an image for hours and lose touch with how to edit it in the best way.