Coming from a client perspective, sounds like our photographer was in a very similar boat with relation to experience. I was somewhat happy with a handful of his edited photos, but I could tell the majority were over edited and to the point they no longer reflected the colors in real life. I believe our photographer used one filter through Lightroom to edit all photos regardless of what they looked like, since he was inexperienced many of them had issues. I feel fortunate that he shared some of the unedited, albeit lower resolution photos with us, since I actually have a degree relating to design. I would have been just as happy if he would have been willing to work with us on changing the editing, but he had deleted the original photos and was unable to fix the edits he made.

If your wife still has the originals, perhaps the client could clarify which photos they would like to see changed. Otherwise I’d recommend she take some classes or watch some tutorials online for good ways to edit photos. I believe a good photographer will want to build good relationships with their clients, since it seems like a lot of the business is word of mouth.

If your wife did decide to give the client unedited photos and edit them themselves, at least they’d be happy. Happy clients with photos they like would be better than unhappy clients with photos they don’t like.