Even if you’re not a professional photographer, learning how to use quick picture tools online can dramatically improve the quality of your photos. Whether you’re using a smartphone or a DSLR like a Canon or Nikon, basic photo editing can significantly boost your images, making them more appealing on Instagram or to friends and family. Here are six essential tips for achieving stunning photographs, plus a bonus trick for adding extra style. Let’s dive in!
1. Master Photo Cropping with Online Tools
First, identify the main subject or subjects of your photo. Once you know what’s important, cropping becomes essential to eliminate distractions and emphasize the focal point. Removing unnecessary elements is a straightforward way to enhance your picture. Online tools like Snapseed offer robust cropping features, accessible on Android, iPhone, and PC. You can choose to create space around your subject or fill the frame entirely, depending on the mood you wish to convey. Consider composition techniques like symmetry and balance while cropping to further refine your images.
2. Enhance Light and Contrast Directly in Instagram
If you’ve primarily used filters in Instagram to edit your photos, you might not know about its quick controls for light and shadow. From the filter selection screen, tap ‘Edit’. To brighten your photo, increase ‘Brightness’. Adjust ‘Contrast’ to a level where details remain visible even in darker areas. Boost ‘Highlights’ for additional contrast. Then, reduce ‘Shadows’, ensuring all details in the darker regions are still discernible. Pro tip: Use ‘Warmth’ to correct color imbalances caused by lighting, especially indoor lights that often cast a reddish tint.
3. Instantly Remove Photo Backgrounds Online
Isolating your subject from a busy or distracting background is a guaranteed method to draw attention and create impact. Utilize remove.bg’s quick online tool. Simply upload your image, and in about five seconds, the background will be removed automatically, without any manual selection needed. The online editor also allows you to replace the removed background with something more creative. Imagine placing yourself in front of iconic landmarks like Niagara Falls, bustling Tokyo streets, or even on the surface of the moon!
4. Create Vignette Effects in Snapseed Online
Many associate vignetting—darkening the edges of a photo—solely with creating a circular border. However, it’s also a powerful technique to emphasize the main area of interest in your image. Knowing your photo’s subject, as discussed in tip 1, is crucial here. Open Snapseed and use the ‘Vignette’ tool. Adjust the ‘Center Size’ to define the area you want to modify, and then either brighten or darken the surrounding edges. Vignetting is particularly useful for enhancing skies, either brightening an underexposed sky or toning down an overexposed one.
5. Batch Edit Photos with Auto Sync in Lightroom
If you have a series of photos taken under similar lighting conditions, whether in a studio or outdoors, Adobe Lightroom’s Auto Sync feature can save you considerable time. This tool allows you to apply the same edits to multiple images simultaneously. To use it, first edit a representative photo. Then, hold down the CMD key (Mac) or Control key (PC) and select the other images you wish to edit in the same way. The edits from your initially adjusted photo will then be copied to all selected images. This is also a quick way to convert a batch of photos to black and white.
6. Speed Up Editing with Photoshop Shortcuts
Photoshop, the industry-standard photo editing software, is packed with shortcut keys to streamline your workflow. You can find most shortcuts listed in the dropdown menus beside their corresponding actions. Some of the most indispensable shortcuts include ‘CMD+C’ or ‘CTRL+SHIFT+C’ for copying and ‘CMD+V’ or ‘CTRL+SHIFT+V’ for pasting. To undo an action, use ‘CTRL+Z’, and to redo, use ‘CTRL+SHIFT+Z’. For customizing your own shortcuts, press ‘ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+K’!
BONUS! Achieve Stylish Photo Effects Quickly
Now that you’re equipped with quick editing tips and shortcuts, here’s a super-fast method to add a stylish aesthetic to your photos using Photoshop. This technique combines the Brightness/Contrast panel with the Curves Layer.
Begin by opening your photo in Photoshop and navigating to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. Set ‘Brightness’ to +25 and ‘Contrast’ to +35. Then, reduce ‘Saturation’ to -25 (Adjustments > Hue/Saturation). Next, go to Image > Adjustments > Curves and slightly decrease the red curve, slightly increase the blue curve, and then add a touch more green. Finally, change the Layer’s Blending mode to ‘Soft Light’.
To add a professional finish, incorporate two Solid Color Adjustment Layers. Click the ‘New Adjustment Layer’ button at the bottom of the Layers panel and select ‘Solid Color’. The first layer should be a yellow Overlay with the Opacity set to 35%. The second layer should be magenta (hex code ‘f000ff’). Change the Blending Mode of this layer from ‘Overlay’ to ‘Soft Light’. And there you have it – a stylishly enhanced photo in just a few quick steps!
