I asked my photography friends to edit my portraits. The results are stunning.

Everyone has unique editing styles for portraits. Some like them dark and moody, others bright and colorful. I think the style of each individual really comes through in their editing, especially the emotion they want to convey. I wanted to experiment with that idea and gave 3 RAW files to each person and allowed them to pick one to artistically change in any way they wished.

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Here are the original, unedited photos:

Models (L-R): Molly (@molly__mae), Mina (@minapoyraz), and Mallory (@malloryhawk)

Please check out each artist's creation and read about why they edited the images the way they did. If you have time, please check out their respective Instagram galleries linked next to their names.

Can Ahtam (@canahtam)

"I usually prefer simple edits on portrait shots. The edit should not take anything away from the subject and should enhance the subject instead. Whether it'd be the eye contact through the photo or the setting the subject is positioned in, a portrait is about that subject and nothing else for me. It is the way you connect with that person and put your filter around it. That's what I love about @portraitmeet and shooting portraits overall because each of us get to show our unique perspective on people while shooting photos of the same people, sometimes even at the same time!"

Daniel Nova Jr. (@_danielism)

"My workflow and editing approach are fairly simplistic, with insanely minimal tweaking; for that reason, I only stick to Lightroom. To start off, I regularly shoot underexposed to protect the highlights and prevent shadow loss. In post, I apply a preset (usually VSCO) as a base, bump up the shadows, reduce the highlights (to below 0 in all cases), add some fade and lower the saturation for that washed-out, moody look. I don't tend to mess with contrast or color temperature that often unless I'm editing a photo shot somewhere where natural light is limited."

Dan Bullman (@danbullman)

"This was my favorite image to edit because of the colors. Mallory has really striking eyes so I increased the saturation of the blues. I darkened her hair color and slightly brightened her skin tone to provide additional contrast. I also added a vignette to draw the viewer into the center of the frame. If I was really in the zone, I would have also gone into Photoshop and done some additional local edits to make the eyes and lips pop out of the frame more."

Ellora Sen-Gupta (@hellorainyday)

"I loved the open feel of this photo, so adding an extra double exposure element was possible here without losing the clean contrasts or cluttering the image. I also wanted to bring a little more warmth by including a subtle lens flare behind Mina's hat brim. My editing style generally trends toward deepening the shadows to bring out the various textures present, which worked well here. And, of course, I brightened her eyes to bring attention to her face and serene expression."

Emily Khan (@i.nflection)

"I edit my images in Photoshop and like to give them a film-like feel. Giving the photo a lot of grain and slight fade, but also a little contrast to help the image have more depth. Making my images have a film-like filter gives skin a nice texture and a warm tone."

Erin DeFuria (@erinofboston)

"I decided to keep the image moody. Using lightroom I brought down the exposure, added a warm and fuzzy feeling to the shadows by adding a push of brown to shadows and light grey to highlights. Pushed the temp up to add warmth to skin tone. I tend not to edit skin other than adding temperature and playing with HSL sliders in lightroom. I like to keep the texture of skin visible.. I used the brush tool’s iris enhance option to bring out the color of her eyes. Ending with the pull down of green saturation. Not into bright greens. ;)"

Frederick Jay (@iamfrederickjay)

"I picked this image because this is something i would take in my portrait session.

I edited image to my style as much as possible. Illford style B&W and little vignette to give more focus on face and eyes, cropping up close and 4:5 ratio for instagram. Nothing crazy but this is my style of editing :D"

Greg Waldmann (@g_w_photos)

"I wanted to make this picture moody and ambiguous, so I converted it to black and white using Silver Efex. I deepened the blacks, simulated an old-fashioned color filter, darkened the background, added local contrast, and pulled up the highlights and midtones a little. I converted another copy of the picture in Camera Raw, which has better channel controls, and used that to make the flower appear hard and lifeless, like marble, and then overlaid that onto the image. Finally, I cropped for a more intense composition."

Katie Salerno (@katieasalerno)

"I typically don't place a style or genre label on my work; I just love to create. But I do believe my photography has a very earthy, romantic and melancholy feel about it. With every photo I take, I try to evoke the true nature of the people I am capturing. As beautiful as wedding details, fashion trends, and florals are, my heart as a photographer remains in human emotion and authentically capturing each client's story. In this creative world, it's really hard to remain confident in your work but it's so so important to always be genuine. I'd much rather be weird and wonderful than anything else."

Marcus Jason (@mrcsjsn)

"My first impression was that it looks like a still image pulled from a fantasy/sci-fi movie. I thought a dark and chilly edit reminiscent of iconic scenes from Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings would make for a fun result. I achieved the look by dropping the exposure and vibrancy, jacking up shadows, clarity and sharpness and adding some grain and a minimal vignette. Lastly, I added a graduated filter in the top right corner boosting exposure to shine light on Molly's face."

Munir H. (@moonair_)

"The classic look of the model in this image lead me to an editing style that mimics old film. I also used a subtile cross processing technique in Lightroom to add additional colors and tones to the image which seemed a bit monochromatic to start. Typically my last step in photo editing is to sharpen and removing noise, however, I felt the noise worked well with the classic feel of this photo."

Nick Damas (@itsnickdamas)

"I chose to sharpen the image a bit, warm it up so to bring out those beautiful golden tones from the reed beds in the Fens, and add a radial gradient to replicate a golden hour glow. I also enhanced the eyes a bit to give them a pop, and touched up the skin ever so slightly. I was a fan of this image when it was first posted by Icy, and having a chance to edit it myself is truly an honor. Looking through Icy’s feed to compare my edit to the edit she had posted, it’s so crazy to see how different our individual approach to editing is."

Nick Guadagno (@nguadagno)

"This photo caught my attention because of the gradient like effect that it has, as well as the subtle hits of color on her lipstick or the sliver of blue around the rim of her glasses. My edit tried to bring out these pops of color in an understated way so that it didn't take away from the rest of the portrait. I imagined this picture being taken on a sunny day under the shade of a pine tree, so I tried to incorporate a sort of warmness to the edit as well."

Rachel Leiner (@rachelleinerphoto)

"My editing style tends to lean towards warmer colors. I chose to accentuate the beautiful yellow tones in this image. By slightly upping the highlights and bringing the shadows down, I aimed to make the subject’s makeup, and darker features stand out. Finally, I also wanted to pull out the beautiful details in the waves of her hair, therefore I chose to raise the luminance of the oranges. I think that in today’s world of photography, the post-production done on an image is just as important as the act of taking it. It is so interesting to see photographer’s develop their aesthetic over time through constantly editing."

Ross Curry (@rossthephotoboss)

"I edited this shot this way mainly because its simply how I always edit. I feel shadows add beauty and substance to a photo so I tend to make them a bit darker so that they are more prominent. I chose to edit this shot because none of the others had models making eye contact with the camera. I feel that when a person makes eye contact with a camera, layers of themselves fall away and they show their true self for a moment, without the conditioned masks of the world. Last I add more contrast and saturation to my portraits because I love contrast in all aspects of life and I love colors but I feel when captured they are never as vibrant as they should be, at least to me."

Tinghui (Greg) Zeng (@thz_m)

"When I got the image, I was surprised by its original colors. The model’s eyes are blue, which perfectly complements with the background and the flower, so I decided to reserve those colors as much as possible. I increased contrast and did some dodge and burn to make the flat raw file looks more dimensional. Then, I sharpened these eyes, because they are my favorite! This edit doesn’t have crazy fancy tones, but I'm satisfied with it because it’s really clean and natural."

Cheers,

Icy