Photography | Photojournalism and Photoshop

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | The Official Visit of Her Excellency Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister of The Kingdom of Thailand to Malaysia | 20 February 2012 | Putrajaya

Someone asked me about my photography editing workflow when it comes to photojournalism, actually it was pretty straightforward, the editing process were kept to minimal. The most important things is to get the right picture inside the camera. To those of you who are interested to join photojournalism line, don’t worry i you are lacking in Photoshop skills, it not the most important skill to have, and just wanted to like you know that not all photojournalist use Photoshop for their editing, some use Lightroom, Aperture (Mac), Fotostation and other less demanding photography editing or media file organizer. The most important skill that you need to have is getting the picture and don’t worry about editing.

In my line of duty, I use Photoshop for my editing but like I said before I kept it to minimum, meaning that I use Photoshop just to increase the contrast a bit if the color was a little bit dull, especially if I shoot in RAW format, straightening the horizon if it was not right, cropping the unwanted part of the picture and that’s it.

Speedier workflow is the best workflow for any photojournalist, like our photography unit in Information Department of Malaysia, our task when it come to covering this kind of event is that, we need to deliver the photography album of the prime minister immediately ate the airport just before the prime minister take off and for this visit, we really in a hurry because Yingluck only spend just a day here in Malaysia.

Right after the shooting, I need to immediately send the files (selected one), to the office and my superior make final selection and then will print the pictures, put it into the album and done, so there is no time for me to spend hours doing multiple layers of Photoshop editing and for other photographers, they also need to send the picture immediately to their news agency especially for their agency website usage. If I can send the picture straight away from my camera to the office, email the picture straight away to the office from the camera the better but at the moment we can’t do that without additional equipment.

The point is don’t worry so much when it comes to editing your pictures, just worry to get everything right in the camera and you’re done. Your workflow will be fast and you can spent your extra time having a cup of coffee with your friends afterwards (after you send the pictures to your photo editor).

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