You’ve just gotten home from a big day of taking photos and you can’t wait to look through your camera. But once you start looking at your images, you’re disappointed to find they aren’t as good as you’d hoped for.
Is there anything you can do? Yes! Both amatuer and pro photographers know that photo editing is key to getting great results.
If you’re wondering how editing can improve your shots, keep reading to fine nine tips on photo editing that can take your photo skills to the next level.
1. Use Lightroom
For advanced or basic photos editing tips, you’ll need to have the right software to get the job done. One of the best photo editing tools is Lightroom, part of the Adobe suite of software.
You can subscribe for a low monthly subscription, which also includes photo storage. Once you learn how to use it, you can get creative and stun your friends with your gorgeous photos.
Here are some helpful Lightroom tricks to get you started.
2. Always Straighten Your Horizon
One of our easy photo editing tips is to think about your horizon. When you look at the horizon in your photo, such as the ocean, is it parallel with the edges of your photo?
It can be tough to photograph a straight horizon, especially if you’ve taken the photo from a moving surface like a dock or a boat.
Your photo will look much more professional if you take the time to fix your horizon, Most photo editing tools, including Lightroom, offer a correctional tool which can adjust this for you automatically.
3. Know How to Crop
One tip that can turn an average photo into an amazing one is cropping. Simply, cropping is cutting down the size of your photo, which can improve the composure or help the subject stand out.
Many photographers frame their photos based on the rule of thirds. This is a way of using a grid to frame the composure of your photo in a way that makes it more visually appealing.
If you take the time to understand it, you may find your photos are improved.
4. Save Your Originals
A top editing tip many pros know is that you should always save your originals. If you’re editing a photo and get something wrong, or accidentally delete it, is your great photo lost forever?
Not if you’ve saved the original! All photographers save their original work as backup.
5. Adjust the Contrast
Have you tried to adjust the contrast of your photos? This can be a simply way to create a more professionally-edited image.
Contrast is the range between the lightest and darkest tones in a photo. By playing with contrast, you can increase shadows, create highlights, or add texture.
Try out contrast to see what a difference it can make to your photos.
6. Learn to Use Blemish Correction
If you enjoy portrait photography, you can improve your photos by learning to use blemish correction tools. Editing programs like Lightroom offer blemish tools, useful for improving skin tone, removing a wrinkle, or making a stain disappear.
It does take some trial and error to master the technique, but it gives your portraits a polished, professional look.
7. Change Your Exposure
To really bring your photo to life, try adjusting the exposure. Exposure is the amount of light within a photo.
Often, adding or decreasing the amount of light can completely change the look of a photo, especially when it comes to landscapes. It’s not always easy for our cameras to capture light exactly as it appears in real-life, so changing the exposure can offer a more realistic look and feel to your image.
8. Shoot in RAW
To edit your photos successfully, you need to start off with images in the right format. You may be aware of the differences between RAW and JPEG photos, which are usually the two main options that photographers have when it comes to shooting.
While there are pros and cons to both image formats, real photographers know that shooting in RAW gives them greater editing options.
RAW photos may take up more memory space, but they also capture all of the data seen by your camera, in an uncompressed format. This gives editors more data to work with.
In contrast, JPEG images are compressed, meaning the data seen by the camera has already been processed. This makes it harder to edit things like shadows and light on JPEG photos.
9. Only Edit Your Best Photos
Editing photos can be time-consuming, especially when you’re first learning how to do it. If you’ve just come back from vacation with hundreds of photos, when will you find the time to edit them all?
A top tip is to only edit your best photos. Sometimes, an average photo can’t be saved, even with editing—you’ll get the best results from editing photos that already look good.
Go through your photos and select your favorites—then, focus on those images when it’s time to edit.
Use These Tips on Photo Editing to Improve Your Work
Even if you’re new to editing, you can still start creating incredible photos using the tips on photo editing above.
Select some photos you love, download a photo editing software, and start learning how to edit. Many people find online tutorials or classes helpful, or you can also learn by trial and error and regular practice.
Get started today and you’ll soon see how much better your photos can be after a bit of editing!
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