Photo Editing: Why is it important?
Everyone has a camera in their pockets nowadays. This does not mean everyone knows how to take a good photo nor how the end result came to be from a professional photographer utilizing photo editing. When most people take a photo, they just post it or use it as is. They then end up wondering why their photos do not look like the professionals or why it doesn’t look like what they see in front of them.
Please enter Photo Editing.
Editing your images is one of the top reasons why your images don’t look as good as you want them to, and why the professional’s always look so much better.
Now I have heard many people tell me that editing your images is cheating. I am not sure why they say this or why they think photo editing is cheating, but it is not cheating at all. Every single professional photographer edits his or her photos all the way back to Ansel Adams. Photos in his time were manipulated in the darkroom by darkening (burning) or lightening (dodging) the images in certain areas.
Then came filters with colour film and different ways to process it. Now we are just using a different medium, the digital medium, to achieve these results. Depending on what file type you are using (Jpeg or Raw) the camera will automatically either add some adjustments to the image or not.
A photographer is an artist after all, so
the images taken are a work of art and processed to how that
photographer/artist wants it portrayed. There are many different ways to edit
an image and how much or how little you do with it will become your style. I
personally like to edit an image so that it looks like how I remember the scene
looked. Some people like to really over edit and make it look unrealistic, and
some like to swap colours. It is all in how you want your style to look. Yes there are limits to the amount of editing photojournalists can do, but other than them, the sky is the limit. The ease in which we can edit photos now is unbelievable. There are thousands of different free and/or paid photo editing apps for your devices, and programs for your computer. Some people don’t even bother with editing on their computer anymore even when they didn’t take the image with their phone. They transfer their images from their camera over to their phone/tablet and edit on there, as the apps are so effective. It has become even easier with the amount of presets you can buy. Presets are a one-click edit for your images, no technical knowledge needed. So if you are wanting more professional looking photos, edit your photos. Don’t go overboard with the filters or make the image look too fake. Find a style that you like and edit your photos to that style. You will see a dramatic increase of how much you like your images. For more great tips on capturing that perfect shot, check out our other blog posts about creating brilliant photos while traveling. How to get THAT shot and Getting better people photos.Want more tips to improve your travel photos?