Photo Editting

Happy Fall Y'all!  I hope your home is just as lovely as ever with all the leaves changing.  Thanksgiving is on the horizon and boy oh boy is their cooking to be done!  Thanksgiving is sometimes glossed over by Christmas but no worries, that food will find it's way to your table I am sure!

This past weekend we went with some friends to take family pictures for upcoming Christmas cards.  It was a lot of fun!  Taking pictures of little ones can be difficult, so my motto is, take a million and you have a good chance of finding one good one to keep.  We did just about that, we took 300+ pictures and I managed to find a few to work with.  I wanted to share how I edited them in hopes that will give you ideas of how to edit photos.

First, let me start with the editing software I used....an online website.  HERE is the website I used.  It is similar to Photoshop but not completely.  If you have Photoshop or Lightroom (my preferred photo editing software) you are already one step ahead of me.  Let's talk about photos now-a-days. They are usually look over exposed and bright.  I am finding that to be the trend of photos today and I do not think they are bad just the current trend.  I personally like my photos to be rich with color.  Heavily saturated to experience every color present in the photo.  So when I edit, I find myself adjusting the saturation more then the white balance or lightness settings.  Here are a before and after of my editing:

Before

After

You can tell that the original image was darker due to the outside lighting so, of course, I wanted to brighten that up.  I like to avoid filters that Photoshop offers.  Such as, sepia, black and white, or old photo.  I go straight for the sliding options under hue and saturation or brightness and contrast.  This gives you the opportunity to adjust it perfectly to your liking or what is best for the photo.  But, I have to always remind myself to not get too carried away with the contrast slider....because it can really ruin the colors in your image.

So, take a photo you have and go to Photoshop or Lightroom, if you do not have that software use the link I provided above and experiment.  The best way to learn is just messing around on the computer a little bit.  Make your photos something special and remember to be the best artist you can be!!!