Author Beth Ruggiero-York
While culling images last week, I began to see potential in some of my older images that I had discounted long ago but never deleted. So I started looking at the old images with a new eye, an eye that has evolved and grown over the years.
I encourage you to do this exercise – go back over your mages by year or subject, depending on how you organize your catalog. Flag photos that strike you as having potential with reprocessing. Put all the ‘potential’ images in a collection or folder, reset any edits you may have made back to the beginning, and start over with the editing process.
There may be many images you don’t even remember taking, and some you remember but had already discredited. No matter how many years later you are looking at these images, you have learned new processing techniques and skills, as well as new software or plug-ins. In addition, your understanding of composition will have grown, and your own aesthetic preferences will have evolved.
So take the time to give some of those old photos a second chance, and I promise you will find a few hidden gems!
Here are a few that I resurrected and reprocessed.
Whether you crop differently, convert to black and white, enhance the colors or clouds, or try different presets in Lightroom or another program, give it a try if you see some potential in an image.
Beth Ruggiero-York teaches workshops for Arizona Highways Photo Workshops.