Taking digital photos is a lot of fun but sooner or later you will come across a situation where you need to help out a photo with a little touch up from Photoshop.
Take a look at these five tips for making the most of your digital photos.
Before you touch the picture in Photoshop make sure you have it set up so that you can work in layers.
They are essential for making sure that your original image files remain unaltered throughout the process.
Layers are like placing a mask over the top of your original photo so that the image is filtered rather than altered which means your original image file remains intact.
The first thing to start with when you take a look at the photo is to decide whether there is anything you want to get rid of.
Perhaps there is an ugly spot on the background that you can easily get rid of by cutting a little out of the photo.
You may also be able to perfect the photo by cutting a little out to improve the composition or the positioning of the elements.
Try to make the adjustments as small as possible, otherwise you will end up taking away too much and since cropping is the one thing that will change your original photo make sure that you have saved a copy! In Photoshop hit layers and then adjustment layers, name it and you will be given a histogram that shows you the intensity of the different light levels going from dark on the left to white on the right.
You want to try to make sure that the sliders on the bottom are as close to the edges of the histogram as you will get the maximum dynamic range.
Careful not to move them too much though, otherwise you may make the colors clump into lines.
The auto adjustment feature is great for beginners as it doesn't give you the best combination but it is usually a pretty good place to start.
The next step after you have set the intensity is to try to set the color so that it is as realistic as possible.
Less is often more with this as excessive adjustments can flatten the picture and lose some of the dynamic range you created with the adjustment of the levels.
You can try the auto adjustment although I find that the auto color tends to make my pictures colder than I like.
Try playing with it and see how it works! Contrast and brightness can sometimes lend the extra bit to your photo.
Again, they are accessed through the layers and adjustments menu and give you just two sliders that you can choose to tweak just to make sure you have the absolute best photo possible.
Now this was just a quick introduction to using the power of Photoshop to develop your photos into truly great shots.
However, as we said, taking great shots starts with taking a great photograph.
To read more on Photoshop and how to create great raw shots to put into photo head over to our guide to digital photography.
Take a look at these five tips for making the most of your digital photos.
Before you touch the picture in Photoshop make sure you have it set up so that you can work in layers.
They are essential for making sure that your original image files remain unaltered throughout the process.
Layers are like placing a mask over the top of your original photo so that the image is filtered rather than altered which means your original image file remains intact.
The first thing to start with when you take a look at the photo is to decide whether there is anything you want to get rid of.
Perhaps there is an ugly spot on the background that you can easily get rid of by cutting a little out of the photo.
You may also be able to perfect the photo by cutting a little out to improve the composition or the positioning of the elements.
Try to make the adjustments as small as possible, otherwise you will end up taking away too much and since cropping is the one thing that will change your original photo make sure that you have saved a copy! In Photoshop hit layers and then adjustment layers, name it and you will be given a histogram that shows you the intensity of the different light levels going from dark on the left to white on the right.
You want to try to make sure that the sliders on the bottom are as close to the edges of the histogram as you will get the maximum dynamic range.
Careful not to move them too much though, otherwise you may make the colors clump into lines.
The auto adjustment feature is great for beginners as it doesn't give you the best combination but it is usually a pretty good place to start.
The next step after you have set the intensity is to try to set the color so that it is as realistic as possible.
Less is often more with this as excessive adjustments can flatten the picture and lose some of the dynamic range you created with the adjustment of the levels.
You can try the auto adjustment although I find that the auto color tends to make my pictures colder than I like.
Try playing with it and see how it works! Contrast and brightness can sometimes lend the extra bit to your photo.
Again, they are accessed through the layers and adjustments menu and give you just two sliders that you can choose to tweak just to make sure you have the absolute best photo possible.
Now this was just a quick introduction to using the power of Photoshop to develop your photos into truly great shots.
However, as we said, taking great shots starts with taking a great photograph.
To read more on Photoshop and how to create great raw shots to put into photo head over to our guide to digital photography.
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