not stopping at the second hurdle

In the pre-digital camera era, purists would rage about never cropping images, somehow believing that the 35mm format was the perfect aspect.  These purists would claim that they had framed the perfect image before they clicked the shutter in order to produce an immaculate print. 

In the digital era, more images are being taken than ever before and many photographers have adopted this purist approach, unconsciously or otherwise. They look at their images and are disappointed by them. Or maybe they are disappointed by themselves, feeling that as amateur photographers they are incapable of taking outstanding images.

A more positive approach is to regard the image as a rough diamond which needs to be cut and polished in such a way as to maximise its potential. Enhancing images is best be done in Adobe Lightroom; its bigger brother Adobe Photoshop is far too complicated to learn for most photographers.

The photos below demonstrate the polishing of one image. All enhancements were done in Adobe Lightroom under ten minutes.