What is the importance of Photo editing Skills in journalism?

Photo editing requires skills, art and a lot of attention. Like news story editing, editing photo is also important in a newspaper. Pictures are inevitable part of a newspaper. Like visuals on TV, photos on a newspaper speak. Photos thus have to be relevant and placed appropriately. Photos need editing like a story and they need be resized because of the space constraints.

WHAT IS PHOTO-EDITING?

The photo editor may cut or resize a photo to fit in the layout of the page. A competent photo editor’s job is to see that the picture is not taking unnecessary space and accordingly he trims the pictures keeping its essence in tact. For example, a photographer has given the photo of the newly appointed ministers. The photo editor might use only the heads of the ministers and cut off the rest of the portion due to space limitation.

Readers may be interested on a narrow strip of the faces of ministers and they will not be interested on the dress they have put on. The photo editors also crop the pictures, bringing out the emphasis of the photographic message as effectively as possible. To improve the look of the newspaper, the photo editor might opt for vertical or horizontal pictures depending on the layout of the page.

The photo editor selects the best photograph which tells the story on its own. As per the space on the newspaper page, the photo editor edits the photo without destroying its essence. The photo editor should have aesthetic sense to fix the photo on the page which should look good in design. In case of any doubt or if the editor wants to crop a major portion of the photo, he should talk to the photographer. The photo editor should also know the photographer’s idea about the picture.