I recently asked on Instagram if any of you would like to see how I edit my blog/Instagram photos, and I got an overwhelming response of "yes" so I'm super excited to share this with you today. While I was thinking about how I would tackle this post, I realized that there is just too much information to put in an entire blog post. So instead, I'm going to create a Blog Tips Series, each one focusing on some different aspect of blogging, with an emphasis on photography, editing, and styling. In this first installment, I'll be going through the editing software I use and my three main tips for editing a photo.
THE SOFTWARE | PHOTOSCAPE v3.7
I think that people tend to think that I use a really fancy camera and Photoshop to edit my photos, but I actually own a really old digital camera (more on this later in the series) and although I dabbled in Photoshop in university, I actually have about 1% of an idea of how to use it. The program I have used since 2008 for any photo editing is Photoscape. I like to think of it as a simplified form of Photoshop, and it's also free! As you'll see down below, I keep things quite simple when it comes to adjusting a product shot, and Photoscape makes it really easy and fast for me to do so because everything is laid out very cleanly. Even if you don't know the correct "terms" of photo editing, I recommend taking a photo, and playing around with each feature to learn what they do.
TIP # 1| BRIGHTNESS
In the [Bright, Color] tab of Photoscape, I will always boost the brightness of my photo, even if I took it in good lighting. You'll find that all of the whites in the photo will brighten up, and the photo itself will look less dull. I always brighten more than I think the photo needs, because brightening paired with the next step will almost always guarantee a good edit.
TIP # 2 | CONTRAST
In the same tab, after adjusting the brightness of the photo, I always raise the contrast of the photo. This deepens any colours/shadows, and makes the colours look richer overall. I never raise the contrast more than about 20-30 because then the photo may look over-edited and for beauty bloggers especially, swatches can be skewed and look different in the photo from real life.
TIP # 3 | SHARPNESS
As a last step in my editing process, I like to adjust the sharpness of my photos up to levels 7-9. What this does is it makes all of the edges in the photo slightly sharper, and even though it's so minuscule, I really think that it's the small details like that makes the biggest difference. Adjusting the sharpness often fixes any blurring and especially if you don't have a great camera, this is something I'd definitely try to make the quality of a photo better.I'm sure that if you're a blogger reading, these are things you are probably already doing on the editing program you use, but if you aren't, I hope you'll try these tips out! Every single photo you've seen on this blog has been edited using the three step method of brightness, contrast, and sharpness. In addition to editing photos though, I do think lighting and styling have a lot to do with the quality of photo you put out. I plan on talking about these topics in future blog posts.
In the meantime, below you'll find some before and after shots of photos you've seen on this blog. Hopefully they inspire you to create some pretty flatlays and experiment with different edits!
Thanks a lot. I need these tips. Because i am a blogger as well.
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome discussion to understand easily about the importance of blog photo edit. Very narrative ! Thanks,it is nice and very effective article here.
ReplyDeleteNick joint|Photo retouching