Photography is one creative field that requires you to excel in a lot of areas. While it starts with understanding your camera, it can range from knowing the composition of a picture to your editing skills. 

Without all of these skills mastered, you can never produce a wholesome output. That being said, the finishing touches in your artistic vision are the most essential. This essentially includes knowing the editing process. 

Nevertheless, editing a photograph well does not involve knowing any complicated software.

Even with basic editing, you can improve the quality of your photograph. Platforms like ShotKit include essential photograph editing tools guides and other refinements that further allow you to make more sophisticated changes. 

This article further focuses on a few tips and tricks to enhance your editing skills and make your photograph look professional. 

What to ensure before starting the edit?

Make sure that your camera settings allow you to take pictures in RAW for starters. This will help you manipulate every aspect of a photograph and provide you with a neutral color tone to influence editing apps. 

The easiest pictures to edit are taken by a skilled photographer, given their lighting and angles. Or else read the rest of the article to make any photograph look like a professional photographer has clicked it. 

How can you make photographs look better with simple editing?

1. Straighten images

One of the first steps you should complete is aligning the field of view. 

Suppose a photograph is not symmetrical or straight to the viewer. In that case, it will often not make a mark.

Even though photographers use grids to ensure that the horizon of any picture is horizontal, it can sometimes be a few degrees off. 

Unless it is a part of how the photographer wants the picture to be, you should consider straightening it. 

2. Crop the images

If you notice minor compositional flaws in a picture, it is best to crop them out of sight. For instance, say someone’s hand is visible in the whole frame but not relevant to the picture’s crucial mood and subject, cropping that edge of the frame and repositioning the subject is a good decision.

3. Spot-clean the image

This point is especially important for outdoor shoots. Outdoors are not always the cleanest places to take photographs. 

Certain gritty elements and dust can find their way to your camera lens, further ruining a frame you liked the most. The best way to avoid that from happening is by cleaning your lens with a lens brush regularly on set. If that is not possible, spot-cleaning a photograph in post-production can significantly make your picture look neater and more appreciable. 

It can sometimes be hard to find the spot-removal tool in an app since they are named differently in different apps. ‘Spot healing’ to ‘clone stamping’ are the two most common variations of this same feature. 

You can also use the same editing software to change a photo’s view by highlighting a specific spot location. Even though it is time-consuming, ensure to work your way around a picture till you get a spot-free image.

4. Adjust exposure

Controlling the exposure efficiently can change the look of your photograph. This process helps you darken or lighten a picture as per your wish. 

For instance, if you think your photograph has a more morose feel, try some darker shades and vice versa. 

However, one important thing you should take care of is noise. Noise is the gritty feel where the pixels show. While it is best to control this when you click the picture, buying this tool can enhance a photograph’s feel. 

Conclusion

All these steps can be a blessing in disguise if you follow them in the order mentioned. Your goal with every picture should be to attain the evenness of lighting and promote the subject in it. 

Along with that, ensure to enhance the feel of the photograph, meaning what kind of emotion it is supposed to ignite in the viewer. With good editing skills, a normal photograph can easily be made into a sight that no one would want to miss. 

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