It’s not always possible that a single photograph captures a scene exactly as you intended. Sometimes, you have to take 3-4 pictures and then pick the one that does justice to the scene. It’s pretty much like choosing from a variety of AT&T packages. With so many image editing tools and apps out there, whether or not you into photography, knowing basic editing is always helpful.
You can use Adobe Photoshopto take your editing to the next level.
Do you agree with that? Great! These are the 7 photo editing skills you must master then:
Skill #1: Cropping
Trust me, once you know basic cropping on Photoshop, you will feel like a pro. Besides, everyone needs a little image cropping once in a while. It’s quite easy actually. It’s done just like you crop an image on your smartphone using the camera’s settings. You create a rectangle around the area you want to keep. The rest of the image is removed. If you want to remove an extra item from an image, cropping is the best way to do that.
Skill #2: Resizing
Resizing lets you change the size and number of pixels in an image file. Often, you have to send an image but because of its size, you are unable to do so. With resizing, you can reduce the size of the image without affecting its quality. That way, the new image wouldn’t take much time to upload either. Image resizing doesn’t just let you reduce the size, you can also expand the image.
Skill #3: Rotating
It’s another basic yet critical skill for applying edits on an image. Does it kill you when you see a picture frame hung crooked on a wall? It’s distracting, right? If you see a crooked image, rotating lets you fix that. Sometimes, the shots taken don’t align as intended. This happens even if you are taking a photo using a tripod. Rotating lets you set the right perspective. You can also reduce subliminal distractions.
After you are done rotating the image, you might have to crop it a little to remove the extras. You don’t always have to rotate an image to align it vertically or horizontally. Sometimes, you just want to rotate an image to give it a little creative touch. In either case, rotating skills come a long way.
Skill #4: Brightness and Contrast
With the brightness and contrast tool, you can increase or decrease the overall brightness of an image. This can have a dramatic impact on your image. Sometimes an image appears flat or dull and you can’t figure out how to fix it. Changing its contrast or brightness can make a huge impact. It’s like adding an extra punch or softening the visual impact. It works wonders when you are trying to add emphasis to sunset or any other scenic shot.
Skill #5: Channel Mixing
Channel mixing lets you change the amount of green, red and blue in an image. It actually does what its name says i.e. mixing color channels. You can repair bad channels and convert colored images into grayscale. This feature also lets you create tinted images and add special effects. The real work is to alter black and white conversion and include a particular amount of red, green, and blue.
Skill #6: Sharpening
Sharpening lets you crease the edge contrast of an image. It’s done to make small features stand out. Image sharpening is done after you have resized and cropped an image. You can also sharpen selective parts of an image like eyes or draw attention to any other part. Sharpening can also be applied to an overall image. You can determine how much sharpening effect to apply with the help of the unsharp mask on Adobe Photoshop.
Skill #7: Layers
Layers open a whole new world in editing. You create overlays having a varying amount of transparency to create a new image by combining all the layers. You can also specify how these layers interact with each other. With layers, you can put a subject in a new location.
Conclusion
There is so much you can do to improve the quality of your image with basic photo editing skills. Just take a handful of images you are not pleased with and use each of these skills to test your creativity. These editing skills will let you produce photographic art. Next time you feel like your photos need editing, you won’t have to reach out to a friend who always makes you wait like the agent whenever you dial the AT&T Customer Service Number. You can make them flawless on your own.
