K.I.S.S.

This is some of the best advice I have ever received. Keep It Simple Stupid. The next time you are editing an image, take a moment and ask yourself if what you are doing is really enhancing the image or are you trying to improve a mediocre image. With programs out there like Photoshop and Portrait Professional, it is very easy nowadays to do all kinds of things to our images. Adding texture layers, doing selective coloring and softening a persons skin are super simple. But are these effects really enhancing your images? If the image is awesome to begin with why add these effects? Now I am not saying that editing effects have no place in photography, there are plenty of instances where adding a slight vignette will greatly enhance the subject matter of the image and there will always be that person whose images can benefit from some cloning and skin softening but it is very easy to overdue the editing and ruin a picture that on its own would have been great. I see a lot of portrait images that the skin softening is done to such a degree that the face is devoid of any texture and looks like plastic. Another overused effect is selective coloring. This effect can be awesome if not over done and its done right, unfortunately it is rarely done right and often over done. So just think about exactly what (and why) you are doing to the next image you open in your editing program. Is it really enhancing an already awesome image or are you trying to save a mediocre image?