Everyone likes to take photos. People take pictures to document interesting or special events, capture things they find beautiful within nature, and record memorable moments with friends and family. It’s sometimes difficult to know what type of photo to aim for. Should you go for sharp, colourful, high-contrast images, or should you choose blurred, soft, and low-contrast?
Let us look at the following tips for photo editing that can help you take better and more professional photos:
- Don’t be afraid to experiment and have fun. If you truly want to take better photographs, you’ve got to be willing to experiment with new tools and techniques. However, that should never mean compromising the quality of your photos. That means not resorting to photo filters that add unrealistic colours, exaggerated features, or completely fake images. Experiment with colours, contrast, saturation, brightness, and sharpness. Adjusting each of these values can make photos differ greatly. Positive adjustments are designed to make pictures more cheerful, while negative adjustments can make a photo look more sombre.
- Understand the basics of exposure. Exposure is one of the most important aspects of photography. Exposure is a photo editor’s best friend and worst enemy. Exposure can dramatically enhance a photo when applied correctly, making it pop with vibrant colours and sharper details. On the other hand, when Exposure is overused, a photo can look washed out and devoid of colour. Understanding exposure will help you control how light and colours affect your photos. Exposure also determines how much natural light can enter the camera. If you already understand the basics of exposure, you should be able to get great photos without much effort at all.
- Take photos in low light. Photos are one of the most important parts of any blog. High-quality photos give readers a better feeling about your blog, can be eye-catching, and show your skills. However, taking photos in low light can be tricky. This is because when taking photos in low light, you are fighting two problems: too much light and poor photo quality. Taking photos in low-light conditions can be challenging, but it’s essential. Everyone should be able to take good photos in low light conditions, but it requires practice. Understanding the basics will enable you to take great photos in low light.
- Use low-res photos sparingly. High-quality photos are great for printing and displaying, but when it comes to sharing small images online, the resolution usually does not need to be higher than 72 dpi. A local photo lab can print images with up to 4000 dpi (or 360 dpi each on the front and backside), and 2000 dpi is the minimum resolution used for most online photo-sharing sites, including Instagram.
- Resize your photos by using the appropriate resizing tool. Photography is something we all enjoy, and most of us like to share our photos online. But what do you do when you want to share a photo that’s too large for social media? Rather than re-uploading or reducing the quality, you can also use an online photo resizer to resize your photo without compromising the quality of your photos. By using an online photo resizer, you can easily resize your photo without losing the quality of your photos. You can resize in either pixels or percentages and then easily save your photo.
- Turn off autofocus and use manual focus instead. Find the best focus point on any subject in low-light conditions. If your camera doesn’t offer autofocus in low-light conditions, or you’re using a camera without a dedicated macro setting, your best bet is to focus manually. Autofocus is the feature that lets you snap a photo, and the camera automatically chooses your exposure. But for some photographers, autofocus can be a curse, not a blessing. Autofocus can cause blurry photos, especially if the sensor cannot properly lock onto the subject. To combat this, most photographers will turn autofocus off, focusing manually. This can be difficult for beginners, but there are ways to make it easier. Manual focus is often a stop or three slower than autofocus, but if you’re shooting in low-light conditions, that increases to as much as an f-stop or two.
If you are a shutterbug, you need to learn how to take better photos. Investing in a good camera is a great start, but knowing how to use the camera’s features effectively will further improve the quality of your shots. Take some time to learn how to take better photos, which you can do by trying out some of the following photo editing tips listed above.