One of the first thing you notice in most professional photos are the darkness of the shadows (the dark areas) and the hightlights (the light areas). In most photo editing software, there is an adjustment you can find that is called Levels. In the Levels panel, it gives you three sliders to adjust. The shadows, the highlights, and the midtones. Increasing the shadows and highlights will really bring out the details in your photos and make them really pop.
As you can see in the image below. The picture on the left is the original photo. The image on the right is the same images but with a simple adjustment of the Levels. Increasing the shadows and highlights. Giving your photo a better look.
The next thing is vibrance and saturation. They are basically the same thing but depending on what kind of photo you are editing will affect your choice. What both of these adjustments do is increase the amount of color in your photos.
The photo below shows the use of the vibrance adjustment. The left image is the original and the right one has enhanced colors. It really looks more true to life.
Those are two very simple things to look for in your photo editing program. If you don't have a Levels setting, you can also look at the brightness and contrast. Playing around with those can give you similar results.
I didn't know that the levels would make a picture look so professional. Does all software have these settings? I usually just take a picture and however it comes out is okay with me. I can certainly see the difference in the photos above. I love looking back at old pictures, and sometimes I wish they looked better. So to have the technology to be able to enhance photos, along with scrapbooking; this would make a good "storybook" for future generations.
ReplyDeleteMost photo editing programs do. Some more basic ones might just have brightness/contrast options so you'll have to look around. Combining both the levels and vibrance options really gives your photos amazing and professional looks.
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