Photography :: Editing Essentials

Wow – that was quite a long “tomorrow” from the last post.  We had some unexpected moving of spaces and internet outages and more moving, but I finally have a space to set up my computer again.  Today I want to talk about simple photo edits that can drastically improve your photos.  I have found some free photo editing websites that I will pass along to you at the end.  I like to edit my photos in Photoshop Lightroom or Photoshop CS4, but most of the edits I will be sharing today can be done in almost any editing program.  I’m using the same image through out so you can see from one step to the next how slight the change is, but at the end you will see the before and after photos next to each other.

Brightness :: Something that I do for almost every photo I work is with bump up the brightness.  As I mentioned before, I like photos that are slightly overexposed with blown-out highlights.  It is amazing what a change it can be to brighten your photo up.  The photo above is a good example.  When I first downloaded the photos from my camera, I thought this photo was okay as was (see above), but by bumping up the brightness just 30% the photo now has more life.

Contrast :: On almost all photos, I bump up the contrast just a little bit.  It just makes for more defined edges and darker colors.  Depending on the photo, increasing your contrast can change it in many ways.  With this photo it warmed it up a bit, as well as made the steps on the stepstool blacker.  The image is a little lighter as well and sometimes contrast will lighten your photo quite a bit, and you will therefore want to keep an eye on that.  On this photo I push the contrast up 66%.

 
Exposure :: This is similar to brightness in that it can help to brighten up your photo, but what it will really do is help you to achieve the proper exposure.  This is an option that isn’t always available in free editing programs, but again, something I use a lot of in my edits.  You just want to be careful and not bump it up too much and wash out your photo.  I usually end up playing with the exposure, and then the brightness if the photo is still a little “dull”.  Here I took it up about 3/4 of a stop (from the unedited photo) – meaning, I can go up to +2.0 and I took it up to about +0.75.

Temperature :: Temperature can be used in two different ways – (1) to fix white balance, or (2) to warm up (or cool down) a photo.  Sometimes when using auto white balance on your camera, you may find that the coloring came out a little cool (blue) and you want to warm (yellow) it up.  Or, maybe the photo you’ve taken just needs to have some warmth added to it and in this case, increasing the temperature will add a little “sun” to the image.  I don’t find myself going to the cool side of things, unless the photo was just too yellow (like photos inside at night with the yellow (tungsten) light bulbs).  In that case I like to cool it down just a little bit, to give it a warm look and not a yellow-light-bulb look.  For this particular photo, I warmed it up a bit, since the white was looking a little “sterile”.

Tint :: Sometimes with your temperature controls you will also have tint controls – this controls the green and magenta of a photo.  I don’t find myself playing with these controls too often, but once in awhile I find that an image is a little on the green side and needs fixing – like in this instance.  It’s actually a little too much magenta, but the tone in the back by the bookshelf no longer has a green hue to it.

Curves :: Curves is a little more advanced of an editing tool – but very powerful.  You can play with both the brightness and contrast of an image right from curves as well as many other elements of a photo just by dragging the curve around it’s graph.  This photo was edited only with curves.  The curve started as a straight line from the top right to the bottom left and I adjusted it to the curve you see to gain the image to the left of it.  The best way to see what curves does is to just play with the tool on an image.  There are lots of tutorials out there on how to work with curves.  Just do a Google search if you want to know more. 

Before + After

So these are some simple fixes to photos that are not quite right just out of the camera.  It’s a good place to start to making a good photo a fantastic one.  I surfed around and found several online editing programs that are free.  If you don’t have an editing program, one of these may be a great spot to start.  Also, while I don’t have a lot of experience with Photoshop Elements, it is very similar to the CS versions and costs only about $99.  Sometimes you can even find deals on it for around $70 – just do a Google Shopping search. 

Free Online Editing Websites

Phixr – Is free to use and does not require registration (at least as I tried it).  There are lots of options available, but of particular note is that it gives you the ability to play with the temperature, exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation and hue.  There are other options like color effects (sepia, black and white, cross processed, etc…), red eye remover, camera effects (lomo, Holga, vignette, and night vision), sharpen, borders and lots more.  A great editing tool all around.  Oh, and you can choose images from your computer or online, like from your Flickr account.

Picnik – This program is one that can be used in junction with your Flickr account, right from Flickr.  When you’ve finished with your edits you can choose to have the image uploaded right to your Flickr account.  A great time saver.  There is an “auto fix” option, rotate, crop, resize, exposure and contrast, saturation and temperature as well as sharpen and red-eye.  There are also preset options, though you are limited on what you can do with a free account. 

FotoFlexer – Also for use with various online photo album programs (i.e. Flickr).  You can crop, resize, adjust contrast, brightness, temperature, hue, saturation and choose from lots of presets.  And much more. 

Pixlr – This program works a lot like Photoshop.  You can do SO much.  If you want a more advanced program, this is for you.  It has all the basics plus levels and curves, layers and much, much more.  There are even a few presets under the Filter menu. 

FlauntR – This looks like it would be a really good program if I could figure out how to open my photos that I upload.  If the one of the others isn’t to your liking, you might like to give this one a try.  It looks as if it’s very similar to Pixlr, but I think not as user-friendly.

That’s it for this post, next post I will be back with some more on advanced editing techniques, but these will mostly be for those that want to brave Photoshop.  See you next post!