Jul 18, 2012
Photo Editing Help!
Do you remember ever having a polaroid camera? I had one when I was a kid – maybe 8 or 9 years old – and I LOVED using it to take pictures of everything. I took way too many photos of my dolls and toys. But I felt so powerful! Just a simple point, click, and then it printed automatically. Ahhh, such simplicity.
I am by no means a great photographer, but I try to do my best. We have a Nikon DSLR 5100 which I’m still learning to use a year later. I have a feeling that it’ll take me years to figure out all the bells and whistles!
Sometimes I realize I’ve taken a decent shot, but it would be just that much better if I was able to properly edit it. We have iPhoto and Photoshop, and sometimes I use those, but there’s also a neat little online trick that I like to use that’s super simple and quick…
You simply upload your photo, scroll through and try out the different effects, choose one and save to your desktop! It’s super simple. I use it a lot on my iPod photos because they can be such poor quality without it. It just adds a little pizazz!
There are 3 ways you can edit your photo, and they’re shown by click on the little “meter” at the bottom of the page. It’s red, blue and yellow. The red is the regular effects, the blue is more like textures or lighting effects, and the yellow is borders. You can use all three, just one, or any combo of the three.
Here are some quick before and afters of a regular photo I took recently to show you what it looks like in its original state, and with a few different effect options:
Before:
After (using “Sophia”):
After (using “Lucas”):
Then, if you want to click on the blue part of the meter, you can add some texture:
After (using the “local” texture):
And, last but not least, if you click on the yellow part of the meter you can choose a type of border:
After (using the border “sand”):
Also, if you’ve never been to The Edible Perspective, you should! Not only are her recipes delicious, but she’s a great photographer with tons of tips on how to use your camera’s settings, editing, and even using an iPhone to its full potential!
Do you have any photo tips?
Beautiful! You should also read http://www.tastewiththeeyes.com/ Goooorgeous food!
Thanks for the tip! I’ll definitely take a look at that link.
One of the first things I do with any photo I’ve edited is work with the levels. To be honest, I don’t actually know what I’m changing, but a friend of mine showed me this trick and I tend to like the results.
So if you’re using Photoshop the first thing you want to do is create a Threshold copy of the layer. By moving the central arrow up and down the sliding scale you are presented with you can mark a couple of important points.
Move it to the left until your picture is almost entirely whited out except for one section. Click on it and it should place a marker there.
Now move it to the right until it’s almost entirely blacked out, except for one white section. Mark that.
Now you can get rid of the Threshold and the marks should still be there.
Now open up, or go to, your levels. Click on the black eye dropper and then click on your dark mark. Do the same for your white eye dropper, and it should balance out a number of your pictures settings.
Like I said, this is usually my starting point. After I’ve done that I usually tweak the brightness and contrast, the colour balance, and end off with the saturation.
Wow, this is really helpful!! As soon as a get a moment I’m going to give this a try. Thanks, Joel! :)