When we think of “glamour photography” we might think of elegant ladies in black and white photographs, or we could envision tasteful or artistic nudes, and we might even think of those photographs that put “ordinary” people in place of traditional “models” with makeup, lighting and expensive clothing.

The essence of glamour photography, however, is that it is never candid or casual. This means that it uses optimal conditions for recording very finely crafted photographs. Is it always perfect? Nope! There are, however, some editing tools that can really improve the overall appearance of such images.

Let’s first consider the lighting; most glamour photographs use clamshell lighting set-ups that require a bright light above the subject and a reflector below, resulting in something looking a bit like a clamshell directly in front of them. While this is a flattering way to illuminate the face or the entire subject, sometimes it ends up adding too much highlight or causing shadows.

This is something that a photographer must be aware of when taking the images, but if a good photograph is suffering from faulty lighting, most of the photo-editing programs will allow the photographer to make some corrections. For example, in Photoshop the “Lighting Palette” allows the user to make some very specific adjustments to contrast and exposure in the image, and this should be done whenever the lighting has gone wrong during the shoot.

While the lighting may have worked just fine, the image could get a boost in real glamour simply by applying one of the many filters available in photo editing programs too. For instance, the equally popular Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo has an actual filter known as “glamour” which when applied softens all of the edges and gives the whole photograph a “powdery” appearance. This can really romanticize even the boldest image, including a nude photograph.

Another thing to remember about glamour photography is that it is intended to make the subject not just sexy, but also really lovely and elegant. This means that the photographer is going to have to compose shots with such results in mind. It might also mean cropping images in order to draw the focus on a more restricted area of the image for the most powerful results.

For example, a photograph of a woman lying on the sand might be perfectly acceptable, but this same image might benefit from a much stronger zoom just on the woman’s head, upper chest and lifted arm. For this reason, it is a good idea to shoot all glamour shots in the RAW format, as this is the one way to retain the highest quality and resolution with even the closest crops and edits.

Amy Renfrey writes a semi-regular article for The Corner Blog. Amy is a digital photographer, a photography teacher, and author of the popular Digital Photography Success package as well as her ebook Powerful Landscape Photography. For more information, or to purchase her Photography Package, visit her site: Digital Photography Success and Powerful Landscape Photography. Amy also publishes a monthly photography ezine called Focus eMagazine which includes dozen of articles and tutorials, as well as hours of video each month. Click here to find out more and subscribe to Focus eMagazine.