Lately, it feels like every beauty blogger has upped their game when it comes to photography. At the moment I can only dream of owning a DSLR, lenses and ring lights so the most important step for me when taking photos for my blog is editing. And believe me it can completely transform your photographs in a matter of seconds!
When I first started blogging I often completely disregarded photos that looked like my 'Before' photo above. I spent ages wandering around the house looking for perfect lighting and often abandoned taking photographs at all if I couldn't find anywhere to shoot. After moving back to University in September I found myself limited to only a few rooms in the house and well lit areas became hard to come by during the winter. So I've found ways to adapt (which include claiming my boyfriend's room as my photography space!) and editing has played a big role in transforming my photography. I'm not, in any way, a professional photo editor of course but I thought it would be nice to share a few tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way. Although I do own Photoshop I'm often away from my iMac and, whenever I go home or visit my boyfriend's house, I always edit on my iPhone. I hope this post helps you realise that great editing software is readily available for all iPhone users for free and, honestly, editing photos is a lot easier than it looks!
A few important, pre-editing tips:
1. Always make sure your image is focused. There's not much you can do about this without professional software (and not even much with it!)
2. Editing can't make any photograph look good. I always take hundreds of photos at different angles to find the perfect one. I'm still learning but good composition can really transform a photograph.
3. These tips won't work for every single photo. The best thing you can do is get to know your editing tools and soon you will just know what needs to be done to get your desired effect! Practice really does make perfect!
Photoshop Express
If you can't afford/get access to Photoshop then what's the next best thing? The Photoshop app! PS Express is the only app I use to edit my photos (unless I'm adding filters) as it provides the most accuracy and has a lot of extra little features.
Looks
Apart from using Spring to brighten up my photos now and again I don't really use the effects on PS Express. My Looks, however, is such a great tool to use if you're editing multiple images from the same shoot. After I've edited one of the photos for my post, I tap the + sign and name the style. Then you can quickly apply the same settings to another photo! Sometimes I make a few tweaks here and there but it speeds up my editing process so much!
Corrections
Exposure and Highlights: I find increasing the Exposure to be the most effective way of brightening my photos and removing that dull, grey look on my photos. To avoid over-exposure I tend to increase the Exposure to a level just below my desired brightness and then I move onto Highlights. Increasing the level of Highlights allows me to brighten particular parts of the photograph, particular the white areas, without washing out the colours in my photograph. I usually end up with a higher level of Highlights than Exposure.
Contrast and Shadows: I also use the Shadow tool to increase brightness and minimise the shaded areas in my pictures. I move the level a little to the right and if I find the tool lightening elements of my photograph that I need to be made visible (such as the writing on a product) I increase the Contrast slightly and play with the two levels until I find my desired effect.
Tint/Temperature: I use Tint and Temperature very sparingly but they are really helpful to remove the grey/blue tint that often appears when photographing on a white background. I'm always very careful not to increase the levels too much as it tints the entire photograph but it helps me to mimic the natural appearance of the product and remove the tint sometimes found in my photos. I think Temperature is the correction I use the most but Tint helps to tweak the colour a little bit more!
Vibrance: The Vibrance tool is fairly self explanatory. I leave this until last and I find it just adds that extra something to make the photograph looks a little bit more professional.
Blemish Removal: Stray hairs, dust, and all sorts of other pesky things somehow find their way into my photos. No matter how much I check something always finds a way to ruin my pretty white background. The Blemish Removal tool (which looks like a little plaster) is a bit temperamental but if you zoom in on the imperfection and tap it, it should mimic the background around the imperfection and make it disappear!
Crop/Straighten: The cropping tool makes it easy to ensure my photos are always the same size on my blog. If you click on Ratio it provides you with a range of options - I use 6x4 for the majority of my photos!
Afterlight
Afterlight is usually the App I reach for if I want to add an effect on my photographs, whether it be for Instagram or for my blog. You can also adjust the brightness, contrast etc. in this app which is useful for a few, last minute changes once a filter has been applied but, like I said with VSCO cam, I prefer the accuracy of PS Express.
I hope this post helped if you were struggling to find an app to edit photos on. If you have any tips feel free to share them in the comments below!
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