I carefully hand-edit each image with an eye toward authenticity
When you book a newborn, baby, maternity, or family photography session with me in Charlottesville, Virginia, you’re not just receiving images—you’re receiving carefully and masterfully hand-edited photographs designed to look natural, timeless, and true to your family. I serve families throughout Charlottesville, Culpeper, Richmond, and Staunton, Virginia, and one of the questions I’m often asked is: What kind of editing is included with my session?
Editing is an important part of the photography process. My goal is always to enhance your images while keeping them natural and authentic. I also edit for consistency and a reliable style, so that when you hire me you know exactly what to expect in terms of quality, color, and overall look. When you’re choosing a photographer for your newborn, maternity, or family session, knowing the editing style and consistency you’ll receive is incredibly important.
What’s Included in Standard Photo Editing
Every image delivered in your gallery receives careful, hand-edited adjustments to ensure it looks polished while still feeling true to the moment.
Skin Retouching
For newborns, babies, and adults, I gently soften temporary skin imperfections. This may include reducing newborn redness, flaky skin, baby acne, or small scratches. The goal is always natural-looking skin with real texture preserved.
Color Correction
Lighting conditions can vary, especially with natural light photography. I adjust white balance and tones so skin colors appear warm, natural, and consistent throughout your gallery.
Brightening and Exposure Adjustments
Each image is carefully adjusted for brightness, contrast, and light balance to create the soft, bright style you see throughout my portfolio.
Cropping and Straightening
If needed, I refine the composition by cropping or straightening the image so the focus remains on your family.
Minor Distraction Removal
If something small in the background pulls attention away from the subject—like a tiny stray object or visual distraction—I will typically remove it during editing.
What’s Not Included in Standard Editing
To maintain a natural and authentic photography style, certain types of edits are not included in standard session editing:
- Changing clothing colors
- Replacing or changing backgrounds
- Head swapping between photos
- Major body reshaping or altering body size
I can sometimes accommodate such advanced edit requests, however, usually at additional cost. My editing philosophy is centered around enhancing real moments rather than drastically altering them.
If you’re planning a newborn, maternity, baby milestone, or family photography session in Charlottesville, Culpeper, Richmond, or Staunton, Virginia, you can expect images that are thoughtfully edited, consistent with my signature style, and designed to be timeless keepsakes for your family.
So for fun, let's take a look at some before and afters from some of my recent work...
For this beautiful newborn girl's session, I brightened and warmed the image with soft magenta tones to make the image pop. I also smoothed out the newborn acne to get that soft newborn skin while maintaining texture.
From the same session, I again brightened--I had underexposed slightly in camera--and added some warm magenta tones. I also removed skin blemishes and flakes while retaining texture and also improved the crop to frame baby better.
For this outdoor picture of an adorable, little girl in a daffodil dress, I again added a warm hint of magenta, actually darkened the image slightly, and gave it more depth and texture. I also cropped in slightly and removed that distracting black object on the right edge of the frame.
For this lovely family's fall session, I added brightness, warmth, and depth. I also removed the white park bench from the background. Their beautiful skin required no retouching.
For this backlit shot of this handsome, little guy playing with a mobile, I brightened and warmed the shot up, and removed his mother's hand (she was holding the mobile for the shot) from the right-hand corner of the frame. I also removed the tag from the mobile.
