How to Use Basic Photo Editing Tools
To process a photo for an online store, you only need to master a basic set of tricks. Even a beginner can handle them.
So, you took a photo. What will you get out of it?
- A common style: all your photos create the same mood you want.
- Beautiful and appealing images: bright, sharp, with excellent contrast and correct white balance. Soft shadows accentuate volume and don’t create accent panache.
- The format is nicely laid out: the background and the product spot are balanced, and each element has enough space.
It’s easy to do all the editing yourself. The most common tools are transformation, color correction, and retouching.
Transformation
A tool that you can use to correct compositional mistakes and rotate the image.
A good composition can be assembled at the shooting stage. But if you see that a correction is needed, the transformation will help.
Let’s remind you of the criteria for good composition:
- The subject is placed in the foreground;
- The background fills the space around the subject so that it is not crowded or too spacious.
Cropping
Cropping will help remove the excess background if the subject is too spacious. You will feel it: look at the picture and say – who is the main character? If there is too much background and it’s the first thing you notice, then accentuation is definitely broken. Check this guide on how to reduce the background space so that the subject stands in the center and catches your eye at a glance.
Rotate
Rotation will help align the horizontals and vertically. If you didn’t use a tripod when you took the picture, the problem with non-horizontal horizontals and non-vertical verticals is quite common. When processing a photo, always check to see if the horizon is level relative to the subject, or if the subject is tilted just a little to the right or left. Be sure to correct. The programs have rulers that can help you check the accuracy. Use them, don’t trust your eyes, because if they let you down on your day of shooting, they may let you down during processing.
Size
The size needs to change, too. For web photos, size of up to 1000 pixels per side is sufficient.
Color Correction
The tool helps you adjust color nuances. You can change the brightness, contrast, and color of the image.
Brightness
Brightness – the higher you set it, the brighter the picture becomes. Be careful: by increasing the brightness you brighten not only the highlights but the shadows as well. If you increase brightness too much, the picture will lose its “tasty” contrast and will look unnatural.
Contrast
Contrast is the difference between light and dark areas. By increasing contrast, you show emphasis. Colors fade, halftones disappear, shadows deepen, and highlights become more pronounced. As you change contrast, be careful of the in-between colors so you don’t lose the softness between light and dark transitions.
Color rendering
Color rendering is color tone and saturation. Color characteristics are also important to correct. Bring the photo to the right hue. The colors in the photo should reproduce the colors of the real product as closely as possible.
If possible, test the result on different screens. Look at the finished photo on a different monitor, tablet, or phone. Make sure the colors are displayed correctly.
This is because each monitor has different color reproduction settings. The same color may look different on different devices. It is preferable that your monitor’s color rendering is close to the average.
If the color on other monitors is very different from the original color of the product, we recommend that you calibrate the color on your monitor and process the photo again.
Retouch
This tool removes small imperfections from the photo: specks of dust, spots, scratches, dents, and other unnecessary defects.
Summary and additional processing features
Photo processing is a must. Steps:
- Rotate the photo.
- Check with a ruler: verticals – vertical, horizontals – horizontal.
- Crop it to the necessary format, cut off the superfluous background. Remember about good composition.
- Increase the brightness and contrast. Gradually and carefully. Make sure color transitions and shadows do not disappear.
- Remove specks of dust and smudges with retouching.
Be careful when processing multiple photos of the same subject. We advise you to memorize the processing steps. Go through them for each photo in a series, just as you did for the first one. Then the color in all the photos will be the same despite the fact that it is portrayed from different angles.
Changing the size and resolution of the photo is the first optimization step you go through in the graphic editor.
The photo is ready!