Editing Photos Tutorial

This tutorial shows you basic techniques for editing photos. My favorite program to use is Adobe Photoshop, but you can use this tutorial with most photo editing programs (some good free ones are GIMP and Picnik). You can use this method to edit any type of photo. For my example, I'm editing an Etsy item in my shop.



This is how the image started out. We can use Photoshop to make it brighter and stand o*t ore.

Cropping

The first thing I do when I edit a new photo is to make sure its rotated the right way by going to Image > Image Rotation. Then I crop it (use the crop tool in the toolbar or go to Image > Crop) so I get rid of any information in the photo I don't need. If it's an Etsy photo, I crop it so any background is out and it's just a close up of the item with a white background.



Levels and Contrast

I like my photos to have a nice white background with the item standing out. Editing the levels and contrast helps do this. To edit the levels, go to  Image > Adjustments > Levels. You''ll see little arrows on the right and left. Move these arrows so they are right where the black blob (the histogram) starts and ends. This helps makes the background whiter.



If you want, you can edit the contrast by going to Contast > Auto Contrast.

Color and Color Balance

Color is important for photos and you might want to tweak the color depending on what type of look you're going for. Changing the saturation by going to Image > Adjust Hue/Saturation is one way to make the colors brighter. Sometimes my photos get a yellow/warm tone. I fix this by changing the color balance. Go to Image Adjustments & Color Balance, and use the arrows to play with the color. Make the arrow more blue if the photo is too yellow or ore yellow or red if its blue. play around. This is an example of a photo that is too yellow so wed want to increase the blue.



This is an example of a photo that is too blue -



This looks nice - not too blue or yellow.



That's my basic editing for photos. The photo now looks brighter and better.



If you find you want to edit your photo more, play with the features on Photoshop or your photo editing program and see what works for you.

How do you edit your photos?