Saturday, March 7, 2015

Blogging Tips | How I Edit Pictures on Photoshop


Today I am inviting you along with me into my Photoshop lair! I am no Photoshop mastermind, tech genius, or anything along those lines, but a year working as the features assistant for my school's newspaper has taught me the basics of Photoshop. I use Photoshop CS5, and I extremely content with the wide variety of features offered that I don't feel the need to purchase the newest edition. Though I am using Photoshop, please know that I do not feel like it is a blogging necessity in any way. Most of the tools I use can be found on other free editing websites which I will be doing a post on very soon! I am still a newbie myself, so the tools I use are quite basic (and I may even be using some of them wrong, so please feel free to correct me!)

ORIGINAL

LEVELS | Image > Adjustments > Levels
One thing to note before we get started is that Photoshop ups the brightness, so keep that in mind when editing. In the dialog box, the black triangle stands for shadows, the grey for midtones, and the white for highlights. I felt that this photo needed a bit more shadow, and I really wanted to accentuate the highlights, so I moved the black arrow right to 22 and the white arrow left to 211. I really have no justification for how much I slide the arrows. I simply slid the triangles back and forth until I'm happy (so scientific right?)


BRIGHTNESS/CONTRASTImage > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast
Next, I upped the brightness to enhance the effect of the natural light as well as to brighten the color of the moisturizer. The Brightness tool works great for correcting the midtones without toying with clipping the lightest or darkest areas. I also increased contrast to "lighten the light areas and darken the dark areas." It helps to take out some of the "haziness" increasing brightness has put on my picture. A sharp image is one of my most sought after things, so increasing brightness alone can take away the clarity in the photo.


DODGE | Magnifying Glass (on left panel) > Dodge Tool
I like to use the Dodge Tool to lighten specific areas on my photo. What I did in this photo is probably "unethical" in the world of Photoshop, but I mean whatever works right? The criminal action that I took was increasing the exposure to 91%. One of the first things I learned when I started Photoshop was to keep Exposure at 3% when using the Dodge Tool. You will notice that the higher the exposure the whiter (and sometimes grainier) the applied areas will become. I did this for the sake of making the corner white as it stuck out to me like a sore thumb. If you are using the Dodge Tool to lighten anything that is not meant to be white, please, please, please keep it at a very low level (nothing greater than 5-10% in my opinion.)


WATERMARK | Brush (left panel) > Brush Tool > select your watermark in top panel 
I like to have a small watermark on the bottom right of my blog photos, just in case some sneaky people decided to use it without permission. If you would like a tutorial on how to create your own watermark, feel free to tell me in the comments, and I would be happy to create one for you guys.


What tools do you use to edit pictures on Photoshop? Please feel free to leave any suggestions on blogging tips posts that you would like me to do! 


-Emily
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5 comments

  1. When I adjust brightness of photos, I usually use curves, but I actually just tried adjusting the levels on one of my photos and I have to say that I kinda prefer it to curves, so thanks for sharing!

    Yet Another Makeup Blog.

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  2. YES GOSH, I DO THE SAME WITH DARK CORNERS. Like I just select one tiny part of the photo that's annoying me and increase the brightness of JUST THAT PART. Even though it's completely un-natural but whatevs. I NEED BRIGHT.

    Sheri | Behind The Frames

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  3. I nearly flipped when you said you use a 91% exposure thingamajig in Photoshop LOL DAMN GURL U A RISK TAKER. Bless Photoshop though. Making up for my photography inadequacies, phew.

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  4. ALSO, I STILL HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO USE LEVELS. SURE I'LL FIDDLE WITH THE THINGAMAJIG, BUT IT NEVER COMES OUT RIGHT AND I'VE STOPPED CARING.

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  5. Trust me I nearly flipped when I did that too LOL That one corner was just bothering me, and I was like it's sooooooo tiny so no one would notice (SO FAR SO GOOD.) I just have fun with levels and play with the sliders like it's some game, haha!

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