When it comes to photo editing for beginners, the first thing that comes to mind is where to start. Questions arise like how to decide how it’s going to look like, or how I end up at this result, or how to get the feeling and story behind the image. The reality is you should never get some photos, get them in the editing app, go straight to the develop module, and start clicking sliders. It’s random and you are not being creative and thinking about the journey of the image. So here is a list of Top 5 Tips of Photo Editing that you should do before you start editing your photograph.
1. Story or feeling you want to tell
This is much important like, what are the feelings and the story that you want to tell with your photo. So a feeling is anything like you want it to feel dark, moody, and dangerous or you want it to feel bright and energetic. A story could be like this person is looking at another person to show that they are in love, for example, it’s a wedding photo. It might seem silly or crazy to think about these things but, getting it into your head matters a lot because it will affect everything you do in the editing process.
So always think about the feeling and the story of your image.
2. Style of the photo
Do you want to be in the style of a corporate headshot or the style of a wedding magazine or the style of a fashion magazine? Now you might think of what “ a style of ” is. Suppose you are shooting a wedding. People might not just want basic wedding photos but they would prefer it to be similar to the ones you see in the magazines. In this era of social media, people want their pictures to be identical to the celebrities. For example, It may be in the style of a surfer magazine so it is going to be like high contrast, lots of bright colors and also often lots of green in there. Your thinking plays a great role in which style you would end up with after finishing. So always think about the style you want to present to the viewers.
3. Who / What / Where
The previous two tips will affect your color toning, your grading, and most importantly the feeling of your image. But this tip will affect your finishing of the image. So anything like sharpening, the way that you crop your image,
the way that you export your image is really important. For example, if your image is going to be printed in a magazine in black and white print which is too low quality for a school, then turn it into a black and white image and sharpen it a little bit more because it’s going to be low quality. So you have to always think about where it is to be used or more precisely who it is for. Is it going to be printed in a book, or is it only going to be used on the web, or is it going to be a social media post? Is it for children or adults? It is important to know these things.
4. Fastest Process
You have figured out the style, the feeling, the grading, the finishing, and all of these things. But what is the quickest way to reach there? Okay, we’ll start up in Lightroom and then do a few edits and then I have to export it and get it into Photoshop, we will add some elements and do some refinement, some liquifying, bring it back and do some color toning, some modification in the tone curve. Huff…. Too many things. So think about the quickest route to reach the ending. It may be going directly to photoshop if it is a portrait, sort out some blemishes over there and then do some cleaning up and then proceed to Lightroom, do some editing in the basics section and finish up. So decide the quickest path so that when you start, you are starting from the right point.
5. Edit the best photo for your job
Use the correct image to edit !!!
So before you go to develop, you have to sit there inside the library and make your selection. Even if you don’t know the above four points, you will be able to make better selections. So if you want the image to be dark and moody, you won’t select a girl happily smiling, right? So always select the best photo for the correct desired result. Whenever you are editing, you should always think about the result.
So that’s the Top 5 Tips of Photo Editing for you to get started.
Explaining all together
Look at this analogy, it would sum up all that is said above.
- Suppose you are hungry and you want to eat something. You travel all over the city, stopping by more than one restaurant, checking the menu list, tasting the food, again moving to another place unless you are satisfied with the food of a particular restaurant. You come back home tired.
- The situation is similar but you wish to have a Chinese meal and you know an amazing place that serves delicious Chinese foods. You reach there, get satisfied, and come back home.
The first case is when you try a hit and trial method unless you are satisfied with your editing. It gives you a scope of exploring new things but involves a lot of exhaustion.
In the second scenario, you know what you want, you proceed through the quickest way possible, you end up with the desired result. Congratulations! You have completed your editing and you are satisfied.