Chris Ozler wasn’t always a professional photographer. Sure, he’d shopped around at some online digital camera stores and picked up a nice DSLR, but he didn’t really quite know how to use it. He was just a hobbyist.
But then he discovered Instagram, and slowly began to have more and more digital camera shoots, and steadily built up a following on the social network. With each digital camera shoot, his skills progressed. As his skills got better, he got more photo gigs. Eventually, he was earning enough with his photography that he could start doing digital camera shoots professionally.
Like Ozler, you may not quite know exactly have the best photography skills, but as his story shows, just about anyone can become a great photographer with enough practice and dedication.
One of the keys is knowing how to touch pictures up in post-production. After all, you’re going to have some digital camera shoots that go great, and others that aren’t so good, but you can always fix some things later.
There are tons of great photo editing apps available for free or for just a couple bucks. Many of them have the same or similar tools, so it’s pretty easy to jump from one to the other.
Here are a few tips to help you get the hang of these photo editing apps so that you can fix up the photos from your latest digital camera shoot.
The Exposure Tool.
As a general rule of thumb, the brighter the photo, the better. Sometimes the tool is called the “exposure,” other times it’s called “clarity,” and still other times it’s more appropriately called the “brighten” tool. Regardless of what it’s named, you should most likely use it to bring in more light to your photos. Be careful, though. You don’t want to make things too, too bright.
The Contrast Tool.
The contrast tool simply increases the difference between the light and the dark parts of the photo. It helps make things pop, and can cure flat looking photos. Though it’s okay to be a little heavy handed with the exposure tool, you need to be careful with contrast, otherwise your colors might come out a little wonky looking.
The Crop Tool.
If you didn’t quite nail the photos’ composition during your digital camera shoot, you can use the crop tool to ensure that viewers’ attention goes to the right places. Using the rule of thirds, try to put the most interesting part of the picture in either the top right, top left, bottom right, or bottom left part of the picture — but never in the center.
With these tips, you can use photo editing software to fix any mistakes you might have made during your digital camera shoots. Of course, it always helps to get things right the first time, though.
If you have any questions about getting more out of your digital camera shoots, feel free to ask in the comments. More.
