This Week on The Grid: Using Editing to Direct the Viewer’s Eye

Sometimes the most effective edit isn’t about adding something to a photograph. It’s about deciding what doesn’t need to be there.

This week on The Grid, Erik Kuna and Dan “Dano” Steinhardt tackle that idea during another round of Blind Photo Critiques. As they review everything from street photography and astrophotography to wildlife, portraits, sports, travel, and architecture, they look at how both composition and post-processing can help control where the viewer’s eye goes.

Erik and Dano share techniques for eliminating distractions, cropping tighter, selective sharpening, dodging and burning, adding gradients, and using vignettes to subtly guide attention toward the subject. They also demonstrate how looking for the “photo within the photo” can sometimes reveal a much stronger composition than the original frame.

One live edit makes the point especially well, showing how a simple crop and vignette can completely change the way an image reads without requiring a complicated edit.

Watch the replay below and see how a few targeted adjustments can make a big difference.