Music photography can be exhilarating but challenging due to low-light settings, intense colors, and fast-moving subjects. A huge part of producing professional music photos lies in the post-processing phase, where you bring out the best in your shots by enhancing color, contrast, and detail. Here are essential post-processing techniques to elevate your music photography.
Before diving into advanced edits, start with basic adjustments to create a clean canvas.
Exposure: Adjust the exposure to ensure the subject is well-lit without overexposing bright areas. Since concert lighting can vary, use sliders to find the balance between shadows and highlights.
White Balance: Concerts often feature a mix of vibrant lighting that can cast odd colors. Adjusting the white balance can neutralize these tones and bring the photo closer to a natural look or match the venue’s ambiance.
Contrast and Clarity: Music photos often benefit from higher contrast and clarity to add depth and detail. Increasing contrast can make the stage lights pop, while clarity adds definition to finer details, like an artist’s features or the texture of their clothing.
Noise is inevitable in low-light music photography, especially when shooting at high ISOs to capture movement in dim venues. Here’s how to address it:
Noise Reduction Tool: Use software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop to reduce noise in your images. Apply noise reduction selectively, focusing on darker areas where noise is more apparent, while preserving details on the subject.
Selective Sharpening: After noise reduction, the image might look softer, so selectively sharpen the subject to restore clarity. Use a small brush tool to apply sharpening only where you need it, like on the musician’s face or instrument, to maintain a sharp focal point.
Concert photos are known for their vibrant colors, and post-processing can enhance these to reflect the energy of the music and venue.
Vibrance and Saturation: Increase vibrance to enhance colors without oversaturating skin tones, making the colors appear more lively. Be cautious with saturation; adding too much can create an unnatural look.
Color Grading: Use color grading to reinforce the mood. For example, apply warmer tones to a pop concert for an energetic vibe or cooler tones to a jazz set for a moody, intimate feel. Lightroom’s color grading tool is especially helpful, allowing you to control shadows, midtones, and highlights separately.
Vignetting—darkening the edges of an image—can focus attention on the center of the frame, emphasizing the subject.
Subtle Vignette: In Lightroom, add a slight vignette effect to draw viewers’ eyes toward the subject. Be subtle to avoid making the effect too obvious; a small adjustment can enhance the overall look without distraction.
Radial Filter for Spotlight Effect: For a more directed focus, use a radial filter around the subject to create a “spotlight” effect, simulating stage lighting. Lighten the inside of the radial filter while darkening the outer area, making the subject stand out.
Dodging and burning—lightening or darkening specific areas—can add depth and drama to music photos, especially under dramatic stage lighting.
Lighten Key Features: Use the dodge tool (or brush tool with increased exposure) to lighten areas like the musician’s face or hands, creating a focal point.
Darken Backgrounds: Use the burn tool (or brush tool with decreased exposure) to darken background elements. This helps separate the subject from the surroundings, adding dimensionality to the shot.
Although most music photos don’t need heavy retouching, minor adjustments can make a difference.
Spot Removal: Remove any distracting elements, like spots of light from reflective surfaces or stray hairs. Lightroom’s spot removal tool is great for quick clean-ups.
Skin Smoothing: If close-ups reveal skin imperfections, use Lightroom’s adjustment brush with a lower clarity setting to gently smooth skin, retaining a natural look.
Converting music photos to black and white can add a timeless, gritty quality, especially for genres like rock or blues. Here’s how to get a powerful black and white effect:
High Contrast: Increase contrast to emphasize the interplay between lights and shadows. This brings out dramatic details and intensifies the mood.
Selective Color Adjustments: Even in black and white, you can adjust color channels (such as reds and blues) to manipulate tones. For example, darken blues to emphasize a performer’s clothing or brighten reds to bring out skin details.
If you’re processing a large batch of photos from the same event, consider using presets to speed up your workflow and ensure a consistent look across all images.
Custom Presets: Create your own preset by saving the initial settings you apply to your first photo. This helps maintain a cohesive style across your portfolio.
Experiment with Third-Party Presets: Many third-party presets are available, designed specifically for concert photography. Try a few to find one that aligns with your style, and feel free to customize it.
Use cropping to tighten up composition and direct focus.
Crop to Remove Distractions: Crop out any unnecessary elements around the edges, like parts of the stage that don’t add to the shot.
Reframe for Impact: Experiment with different aspect ratios, like 16:9 for a cinematic feel or 1:1 for a balanced, modern look. Make sure to align key elements with the rule of thirds to enhance visual appeal.
Once you’ve finished editing, choose the right export settings based on how you’ll use the images.
High Resolution for Print: Export at 300 dpi and in a larger size for print quality, especially if you’re using the images for album covers or promotional materials.
Optimized for Web: If sharing online, export in a smaller file size to ensure fast load times. Adjust quality to around 80-90% for a good balance between quality and file size.
Post-processing is a powerful tool for transforming raw concert shots into stunning music photos that convey the energy and emotion of live performances. With practice, these techniques can help you develop a unique style, elevate the quality of your work, and better capture the excitement of the music world. Experiment with these adjustments, make them your own, and see how each technique can make a difference in your photos!
Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular choices for music photography post-processing. Lightroom is excellent for basic edits, color grading, and batch processing, while Photoshop offers more advanced tools for retouching, blending, and special effects.
Use noise reduction tools in Lightroom or Photoshop to minimize graininess. For best results, apply noise reduction selectively to shadowed areas where noise is most visible, then selectively sharpen the subject to maintain detail.
Start with white balance adjustments to neutralize unwanted color casts. Then, use vibrance and color grading to enhance specific colors that capture the concert’s vibe. This helps you bring out the natural hues while keeping skin tones balanced.
Use custom or third-party presets to ensure consistency in color, contrast, and style. Applying the same preset to all images from a concert will create a cohesive look, which is particularly helpful for portfolios or social media galleries.
Black and white works well when you want to emphasize mood, contrast, or textures without the distraction of intense colors. Consider converting if the lighting is particularly dramatic or if the shot would benefit from a timeless, gritty feel.
For web sharing, export at 72 dpi with a quality of 80-90% to balance quality and load times. Resize the image to a suitable dimension (like 2048px on the long edge) to ensure it looks sharp without being too large.
Use vignetting or a radial filter to subtly darken the edges, focusing attention on the subject. Dodge (lighten) the subject and burn (darken) the background to create separation and add depth.
Vibrance selectively boosts colors with lower saturation, leaving skin tones and already saturated areas less affected. **Saturation** increases all colors equally, which can quickly look unnatural. For concert photos, vibrance usually gives a more balanced, natural effect.
Adjust the white balance first. If the color is still off, try using the adjustment brush in Lightroom with color adjustments to subtly correct skin tones without affecting the entire image.
Generally, minimal skin retouching is sufficient for concert photos, as stage lighting can naturally smooth skin. However, for close-up shots, you may want to use slight clarity reduction or a skin-softening brush to create a polished look without losing natural texture.