1/07/2013
Behind the Lens; How I Edit My Photos
I've had a few people lately telling me that they like my photos (big thank you to you!!) & people requesting how I edit my photos. Yes I do edit them but not excessively. This is usually because I don't have a fancy lighting set up & sometimes my photos benefit from a little retouching.
Before I go on I want you to know I am in no way a professional photographer. Aside from an A Level qualification in Photography from school I have had no other training. I just take pictures a lot & practice when I can. I also want you to know that I never get the perfect shot straight away. I often take at least 8-10 pictures of a composition so I have plenty of images to choose from when I edit. This means I do take photos of a lot of different set ups, particularly when it comes to my beauty photos as well.
Keep reading for my tips & tricks!
dSLR Editing
Camera I use: Canon EOS 450D with an 18-55mm lens. This is the only camera I use to take photos for my blog unless stated otherwise. I use the manual setting as that is how I was taught to use my camera & it is great if you want to adjust the brightness & focus of photos yourself.
What I edit with: Adobe PhotoShop CS5. This is expensive, I bought it with tertiary discount from an Apple store though so it was considerably cheaper. It is one of the most valuable tools you can have as a photographer or blogger though & I'd be forever lost without this.
How I edit:
Brightness & Contrast: This is the main tool in PhotoShop that I use. Occasionally I use Auto Contrast but I find adjusting the brightness & contrast levels manually is more effective. This makes my images look crisper & sharpens the colours for me.
From left to right: Dark-Blue Sensation, Rose Feeling, Vintage Melody.
Actions: These are editing effects usually made by other photographers which are applied to an entire image. I use Alexandra Sophie's actions which she sent to me. I use Vintage Melody a lot on my beauty & haul posts as it leaves the most gorgeous effect on those images.
Extras: Fonts I use are all already within PhotoShop or I source them from dafont.com, a free font downloading site.
iPhone Editing
What I use: iPhone 4 & its built in camera. I rarely take pictures within the apps, I just find it easier not to. I also rarely ever use flash as I find the image quality is never as strong.
What I edit with: Photo Apps! The main ones I use are; After Glow, Pic Fx, Instagram, Bokehful, More Beaute 2 & Picframe.
*I use at least 3 or more apps to edit my photos so it is harder for me to remember how I edited particular photos, which is bad I know. Instead I'll show you examples & what apps I have used for them.
This image was just edited with Instagram. I can't remember what filter this is sorry guys! I blurred the background as well.
I've used Instagram & Pic Fx here to create the bokeh heart effect. For the final image I framed this using After Glow & I think I used one of their filters as well.
This was edited entirely using After Glow.
I've used After Glow for the framing, lens flare & filters in this image. I think I used Instagram initially as well for filters. The final touch is the bokeh effect achieved using Pic Fx.
-I hope this post has been useful for some of you & hopefully answered a few questions. How I edit my photos isn't too tricky so you can easily recreate images like this yourselves. If you have any further questions feel free to send me an email or leave a comment & I'll respond to you.
Have a marvellous Monday! I'm away on holiday again, I love this time of year. I'll be back with another post on Wednesday!!
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This is so helpful! I always wondered what people used for the circle effect. Thanks for the sweet comment on my post. xo
ReplyDeletehttp://viewsofnow.com/
Thank you for your lovely comment in return. Afterglow really is a great app xx.
DeleteSuch a great post! And thanks for the shout out. As a newbie to instagram I found this so informative. Yesterday I found this app so that I can use instagram on the computer rather than my phone. I tried it on my phone when I first got it and got confused! And, as a plus I've been having phone troubles this past week!! So having it on the computer is easier :)
ReplyDeleteI must try your other phone editing things to make photos look prettier, but I'll probs use those when I get my phone sorted and figure out how to use instagram on my phone. Silly me :)