Pixiq

There are numerous tools and techniques that top photographers use to improve their photography.  This process should start at the time of capture.  But even after you've captured the shot you'll need a few essential tools to get that picture ready for the world to see it.

This, of course, is where digital image editing software comes in.  There are tons of flavors out there but whether you're using Adobe Photoshop, Apple's iPhoto, or the one that came with your camera the best thing you can do is get to know your software!

Take the time to read the manual, watch video tutorials, read blogs specific to that program, and try to learn everything you can about your image editing software so you can get the most out of it.

Some things are universal.  The concepts of color, exposure, resizing, and web display or printing are all essential when it comes to photography in today's age.  We'll help you get started.

Improving Your Pictures: The Post Processing Essentials

Conserve Your Original: Layers, Non-destructive Editing, and Creating Duplicates 

When it comes time to "fixing" your photographs it's good practice to ensure that your original file is left untouched.  You know, just in case.  Your edits may not come out quite how you planned and you may want to start over.

Photoshop let's you create layers that are basically duplicates of the original image for you to work on so you don't mess with the pixels of the original picture.  If you don't like your edits you can simply trash that layer and start over.  Other programs like Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture use non-destructive editing which is handled in the program and makes it really easy to revert the image back to it's original form.  iPhoto and a few others don't offer these luxuries.  You'll want to make a practice of creating a duplicate in a separate folder before proceeding with your edits otherwise you risk making irreversible changes to your original.

Color Correction

For many photographers color correction is either an exact science or it's a "gut feeling" kinda thing.  Actually, for me, it's a little bit of both.  It just depends on what I'm shooting.

For the sake of simplicity we'll handle this in the "gut feeling" department because we're talking about post processing images you already have in your computer.  The exact science stuff really does start before you even press that shutter!

Photography is about light and color.  Again, for simplicity, we'll discuss colors as they relate to each other.  Cyan is the opposite of red, green is the opposite of magenta, and yellow is the opposite of blue.  In order to correct a color cast you'll want to adjust the overall color of the image in the opposite direction.

Every image editor handles this differently.  This, again, is where reading the manual and being familiar with your software can really help out.  Photoshop has a "color balance" function and iPhoto has temperature and tint sliders.  Play with them and get a feel for how they work and what they do.

You're ultimate goal is to make your pictures "look good".  In portraits of people you'll want to avoid a yellowish tint or your friends and family will look like they've got jaundice.  Practice color correction and use other photographs as reference.  

If all else fails simply convert your picture to black and white and call it art!

Note: Consider color calibrating your monitor.  Otherwise you risk making a picture look good on to you on your computer but may look not so good when you print it or send it Aunt Devann.

Adjusting Exposure and Contrast

Sometimes your image is too dark or too light.  Don't worry, this happens to the best of us.  Typically, this can be easily fixed, to an extent.

Adjusting your image for exposure can be as simple as adjusting the brightness slider which will increase or decrease the overall lightness or darkness of the image.  

Once you've got your image to a more likable degree of brightness you may find that it's a little dull due to the adjustments.  This is where contrast adjustments come in and you've got a few routes you can take on this one.  Most image editing software programs have a "contrast" slider and many also have levels, curves, and more.

Contrast is very much a "gut feeling" adjustment as well.  Many photographers find that they like their images to "pop" a little more and can do this by upping their contrast.  Play with these settings and see what you like.  These are your photographs after all to do with as you please.

Cropping and Resizing

Presumably you'll be displaying some of your photos in one way or another.  Hopefully you're printing your work or perhaps you just like to share them on the web, either way you'll need to know how to get those digital photographs set to the right crop and size.

This can be done in any digital image editing software simply by using the crop or image size tool or menu.  Just plug in the desired horizontal and/or vertical dimensions and you're good to go.  If your software doesn't do this then you need to move it to a USB memory stick, take it off your computer, place it gently in a metal trash can, then set that sucker on fire.  Well...that's what I would do anyway.

For web usage I tend to crop or re-size my images for 800 pixels on it's largest size although I've certainly done larger and smaller for different situations.

Printing is a whole other ball of wax.  You'll want to size your image for inches and set the pixels per inch according to your printer's specifications.  Pixels per inch (PPI) refers to the number of pixels that your digital picture has per square inch of size.