How I Edit Photos in Photoshop & Tips
How I edit photos in Photoshop really can change the look of the picture. This can be helpful even if you are taking photos of your friends and family. Now let me be frank. I am not a professional in that I only know a small percentage of what can be done in the photo editing program. In fact, I’ve made all the mistakes in the past which is how I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t for our situation. And if you don’t use Photoshop, I have other options for your phone below.
Quote of the day: “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” Marilyn vos Savant
These are the normal changes I make to the photos that are downloaded off my DSLR camera. Yes, we pay for the Photoshop program now. In the past I tried to use the free editing that came with my computer. And while it worked somewhat, it didn’t help with some of our issues.
So let me give you the tips I’ve learned that can help EVEN if you take your photos on your phone. Truthfully, almost every photo you take could benefit from post production editing. I’m sharing the phone editing app for my phone that I use below.
The Basics of Photography
Lighting. That’s the basic of photography in a nutshell. What that means is when you take a photo, you want the light on the subject as much as possible.
Here, do this trick now as you take a selfie on your phone. Point the camera (you don’t even have to snap the picture) at you as you face the window. Then turn around so you are facing the wall behind you. Do you see a difference? Along with that, if you angle the camera up or down or from the side, it can change the lighting too.
The problem for our blog photography is we don’t always have the advantage of only taking photos when the lighting is good. The experts say that the best outdoor lighting is in the first 2 hours after the sunrise and the 2 hours before the sunset. Needless to say it’s rare that we are up and taking photos THAT early, and many of the events we attend are during the middle of the day.
Therefore, we look to take photos in the shade. Which helps but provides other issues. Taking photos in the middle of the day in the sunshine creates killer shadows along with awful looks on our faces as we squint.
Insider tip: While shade is better for taking photos of people in the middle of the day, you also want the photographer in the shade too. You can get a “sun haze” otherwise. That haze is somewhat correctable in Photoshop luckily.
Editing
Now let me say there are a ton of extra add-ons to Photoshop that can make the photos even better. However, I spend limited time and money on this because I would rather do and buy other things like shoes, haha.
For our blog photos, let me say I only edit the lighting. I never edit our bodies or faces to make us appear any different than we are in real life. Why? Because I believe we are beautiful as is. We are real women showing real style, and I hope you appreciate that. Sure, I crop out or don’t use photos with funny faces or closed eyes. Then again, if you check out the bloopers posts, you can see those there.
As I was editing these photos from our San Juan experience, I wanted to share my usual steps with you so you can see how I edit photos.
How I Edit Photos
The photo above is how the Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis cemetery looked straight off the camera in raw. What is raw? It’s a setting on your digital camera for the photos instead of taking the photo as a Jpeg. I resisted using raw photos for the longest time because then you HAVE to use Photoshop to edit them. But I drank the Kool-aid and realized that I have more control on editing the lighting for my photos this way.
While you can’t always tell a huge difference in each step with the edits, I feel that the end result is clearly a huge difference. In fact, I also shared another before and after photo below.
Texture and Clarify
These two steps of texture and clarify tend to add sharpness to the photos.
Dehaze, Vibrance & Highlights
Dehaze and vibrance tend to darken the photo. The dehaze is a life saver for when Rob is standing in the sun and we aren’t. For example, back before I was using Photoshop, I would get this white patch on the photos that I had no idea why or how to get rid of them. You can see it in the last photo of Charlotte from this previous blog post. I finally figured out it was when I was standing in the sun to take the photos yet my mom was in the shade. While it’s easier to correct this in Photoshop, we also try to take the photos so we know this won’t happen. The less post production editing, I have to do, the better.
As for highlights, I tend to reduce them in most of my photos. When I wasn’t doing this, you can see how our faces tended to look washed out.
Vivid Profile and Shadows
One of the last edits I make to my photos is use the vivid profile to add more color to the photos and then add or take out the shadows. And then tada…the finished photo below.
In truth, I did remove the street sign from the lower left in Photoshop too. Although it’s not something you notice in the smaller photos. So, I thought I’d show you with a person in the photos below. I rarely use this feature since many of our photos don’t have these interruptions.
How I Edit Photos with Unnecessary People
These two photos are perfect examples of how I edit photos from start to finish. Bear in mind, cropping a photo makes a huge difference also. And that person who is standing by the trees? I just used the eraser tool to make him disappear. Granted, if you look closely, you can still see his shadow, LOL!!
Phone Cameras and Apps
The concept of light and taking photos is no different for your phones. Personally if you are posting your photos on social media, I think most would benefit from some editing. If you follow me on either Facebook or Instagram, then you’ll see my “outfit of the day” in stories. I edit these quickly after taking the photo with the editing program that my phone provides. I usually lighten it, pop the color and crop out everything but what’s in the mirror. It takes 5 seconds.
There is another free app I use for photo editing on my phone when I want to have more options. It’s called Snapseed and has many other filters if you need them. When I click the edit button on a photo, I am given the option to edit with either my photo app or Snapseed.
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