Wedding Photo Advice

It looks like the colors were skewed by the editing program they used. You could ask them to send you the raw, edited images which would have a truer color

Sorry, typo... I meant raw, UNedited images

What a beautiful wedding! It’s definitely the edits and I think asking for the raw, unedited photos is a great idea. Have you seen other galleries from your photographer that this is common in their editing style?

It looks like their editing style skews to the currently popular editing that has a green filter. Do the rest of their albums look like this? I don't think the photographers will give you unedited photos as not only do they want to have correct representations of their work floating around, but they also do not want others to edit their art. I would ask if they can edit the photos to be a bit more true to color, but unfortunately, they may not be willing to do so if that's not their style.

First, they are beautiful photos & congratulations! Day of lighting combined with editing style may ultimately result in some color changes--but I think Nicole is correct in that this looks like the filter-y editing style (which is very popular right now, and I know many people who have photos in this color scheme!).

A big thing to consider is if your photographer's images are always be in this style/color, or if they vary. If the photos in their portfolio, galleries, and social media are all similar, then this is likely the photographer's style. If there's a lot of variety, maybe they often change their editing style.

The best thing to do is have a conversation with your photographer, but know that if this IS their style, contracts usually cover that photos will be edited as such (I know my contract does!). That doesn't mean that they won't make an exception if you're unhappy, of course.

I personally wouldn't ask for raw files, for a few reasons. Most photographers will tell you no, as there are a lot of copyright concerns around it. I'm also not sure you want those files--raw is a file type that can only be opened by certain softwares. The colors can look really dull until they are properly edited, and you also shouldn't print them until they've been saved as another file type (usually jpeg). A lot of what you're paying for is your photographer's editing time. There's always a chance your photographer does shoot in jpeg, although I don't think that's common.

I agree with pp who said ask for the raw images just to compare and also cause a lot of the times, raw photos come out nicely too

It can’t hurt to ask for the raw image files and just say you want to play with them on your own Photoshop for projects. The worst they can say is no but at least you tried.

Talk to the photographer asap because you should be 100% happy with your pictures. Regardless if it is the current thing or not, if you wanted a certain filtering style, that should have been discussed and agreed on before you signed the contract and not be a surprise now. Don't take no for an answer, especially they are providing you a service, not the other way around.

I would just ask for the original pictures.

Looks like what he did was filter the photos with a "golden light" effect to make it look sunny and warm, however warmth cancels out blue shades which is why it sucked out the color of the blue suits and lilac dresses.


He might provide the unedited photos, but then you'd have to sacrifice the flattering golden light for duller overall photos.
He may have also increased contrast to make things look sharper.

Okay so the first picture the groom looks like he has a black suit, The second picture he looks like he's wearing a navy blue suit, The third picture looks like everyone is wearing a navy blue suit except for the groom, It looks like he's wearing black, And the last picture looks like they are all wearing black.. I'm not sure what you paid your photographer, but I know all the money I spent on my photographer, I would definitely say something!! If you are not happy with the pictures and you want the suits to look the color that they actually are, which you absolutely should, you have no right in feeling bad about that, you should definitely say something!!

Congratulations!! You were a beautiful bride. I would ask the photographer if he or she can fix it or at least give you the originals. Because you did go out of your way to pick those colors so I’m sure it would be nice to see those in a professionally done picture.

View Quoted Comment I disagree with this. She chose this photographer for her photos, portfolio and style. Asking them to edit in a different style would be like going to a vegan restaurant and asking for a steak.

View Quoted Comment This here 💯
It looks like it’s their editing style

View Quoted Comment Yes, this is my take too. It still never hurts to ask, & not having seen this photographer’s work it’s always possible that they have a variety of editing styles or recently changed to this one...but it seems unlikely.


I think a good mindset to have with wedding photography is that you’ve paid for someone to make an artistic interpretation of your wedding. Photographers are artists, not journalists. It will never be exactly true-to-the-day, & it’s most important that they capture the emotions & overall story. I say this having similar worries myself—I’m a bit worried about my own photos for next year & trying to trust that I’ll love them!

View Quoted Comment I think there’s a middle ground here. Looking at the first photo, if I hadn’t been to the wedding and hadn’t seen the other photos I wouldn’t have had a clue that the groom was wearing a navy suit! Not having seen this photographers website, maybe it wasn’t so obviously that their style was always so heavily filtered. While I appreciate style and tasteful editing, the editing seems a bit extreme here and not aligned with the bride’s vision. In this case I think the bride should speak up and ask if the filtering can be toned down a bit to bring the coloring closer to what she saw on her wedding day. And for future brides, ask the photographer to see examples of their work at your venue or with a color palette or style similar to your vision before signing that contract.

View Quoted Comment I think this is a good lesson for people booking photographers to look at full galleries to make sure they like the editing style of the photographers. Because you shouldn’t ask an artist to change their style for you, it’s up to you to find an artist whose work you love. I don’t love this style of editing (as presented by the OP), which is why I found photographers who have a more true to color editing style that plays with natural light...but we also looked through 3-4 full galleries during our consultation and asked them to explain their editing process to us. The OP may be able to ask them to make the color editing more true to color, but she honestly may be out of luck if the photographer doesn’t want to alter his/her artistic vision.

View Quoted Comment In all of her photos she never edited like the ones we received at the wedding. She took our engagement photos and they were amazing and true to color. So I’m not sure if she changed her style in the last 6 months or what...

View Quoted Comment Her editing style has never been like that. We tested her out and had her take our engagement photos and the editing is completely different.

View Quoted Comment Definitely say something to her in that case.