5 Steps for Photo Editing for Beginners

It's estimated that humans take more photos in 2 minutes than all photographs taken in the 18th century. Photos are worth a thousand words and they are becoming essential to showing people the quality of life you live. 

If you are looking for tips on photo editing for beginners, look no further. We have compiled the top five tips for beginner photography. 

1. Cleaning Your Photos

One of the best ways to improve your photos is by cropping and cleaning up your images. Cropping images can remove distracting elements that may be at the edge of the frame, and it can allow you to reposition your subject. This is helpful to improve little compositional details in the photo. 

Keep in mind that camera lenses can collect dust or gritty elements depending on where you are taking photos. Using a lens brush can help cut this down, but there are also spot-removing tool programs that give you a spot-free photo. If you have an unwanted object in your photo there is a background remover that can help easily take it out. 

2. Exposure and Contrast Adjustment

Exposure helps you make the photo as bright or dark as you prefer. You can use a photo histogram to help optimize the final exposure level while you edit your photo. If you see a spike on the left side of the diagram, your photo may have a lot of darker tones. 

Contrast is really important to get perfect because it is the range of light to dark tones. When you have high contrast all the tones are either dark or light even if the colors look perfect. This is why having a middle contrast is best so you don't have a flat or stark image. 

3. Selecting White Balance

White balance is great to adjust after exposure and contrast. It helps correct the unwanted colors that show up in your photos, and if done correctly it should show what the subject looks like in real life. White balance can be adjected how you prefer, but keep in mind that JPG files capture less digital data so they offer less adjustment during editing than RAW files. 

4. Editing Software

A crucial part of editing photos is being familiar with your software. Some of the best photo editing software for beginners is free. If you want to find a higher quality software there are subscriptions and services you can purchase through Adobe or PhotoLab. 

5. Take Beginner Photography Classes

There are professionals who have been taking photos for years and developing their skills. It's great to look into a course locally if you can afford it, but if you can't there are great videos on Youtube or online. 

Move Past Photo Editing For Beginners

After you follow these tips for photo editing for beginners, you will feel like much more of a photography pro. Remember to use your inspiration and experiment with your skills and you will see your photos enhanced in no time. 

For more lifestyle or photography tips and tricks check out our other blog posts.