With excellent cameras installed on our smartphones, it’s easy to get excited about photography as a hobby. Maybe you’ve even bought a DLSR for those cool, faded backgrounds. But digital photography is a little more involving, especially in the editing stage.
While many smartphones use technology to produce an already beautiful image, DSLRs don’t do that. Instead, you’ll have to take your image into a photo editor to clean it up.
Photo editing for beginners can seem like a daunting task with all those dials and histographs, but it doesn’t have to be. You can achieve a whole lot with just the basic photo editing skills. If you’re interested in editing your own photos, continue reading for everything you need to get started.
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Why Shooting in RAW Is Important
If you’re just learning how to edit, you may not know that the editing process actually starts with the image file. Before you bring your photos into your editing software, make sure you’re shooting in RAW. Photo files in RAW collect more information, making your edits much easier to work with.
You might find these images a little perplexing if you’ve never worked with RAW photos. They typically come out underexposed in order to capture as much color as possible. No worries, this is easily adjusted in your editing software.
Adjust Your Exposure
With the first of our photo editing tips, you’ll want to adjust the exposure. This controls the amount of light that is displayed in the photo. Adjusting the exposure will raise or lower the overall brightness of your photo.
When working with exposure, try to find a nice balance of light and dark. Overexposing your image will leave certain aspects too bright. On the other hand, an underexposed image is too dark to view.
Work With Your Contrast
One of the most important photo editing skills involves adjusting the contrast. This aspect controls how stark your highlights and shadows show up in the image. You can adjust this to achieve either striking or muted effects.
Check the Saturation
Another aspect to consider when learning how to edit photos is working with saturation. When adjusting this setting, you’ll control the amount of color that shows up in your image. You’ll achieve dull or vibrant results depending on how you work with this.
A common mistake in photo editing for beginners is using too much saturation. New photographers love to see the colors pop in their images, but oversaturating your photo can leave it looking unnatural. When adjusting saturation, a little goes a long way.
Additional Editing Features
While proper photo editing skills are the foundation of great-looking images, you don’t have to stick to them explicitly. There are many photo editing programs that offer a variety of features to make your edits easier. Check out this online background remover for a simple solution to isolating your focal point.
More Photo Editing for Beginners
Photography is an excellent hobby for creative expression and getting outside. This advice is a great place to start creating fantastic images, but it only scratches the surface of what you can do.
For more on how to improve your photography and editing skills, scroll through our Technology section.