A rough guide to image editing
Most people have Photoshop or a similar program and want to edit their photos whether they be family snaps or business related.
In terms of editing it can be a mine field and there are professionals that spend all day editing images to the highest standard, just look at the recent Britney Spears before and after pictures. http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/beauty/450528/pics-before-after-britney-s-airbrushed-candie-s-ads.html You can be edited within an inch of your life!
Just to go off on a tangent here, congratulations to Britney who has had really bad press in the past but you’ve got to take your hat off to her doing that and hopefully influencing people who are effected by eating disorders and such, because of an ‘ideal’ that is promoted within the media.
Anyway, back to image editing. There are the basics that you can smarten up an image quite easily by editing the brightness and contrast of an image, removing a speck or flaw, removing red eye, removing an object. There are so many that I would recommend doing a google search for your relevant programme and follow the step by step tutorials. You’ll find they are easy to do and you’ll be able to use them time and time again. There will be different ways of doing the same thing, some more complicated than others and some more effective than others, choose which one suits you best.
The things that I use a lot and use in Photoshop are the brightness and contrast which can really bring a dark picture to life and improve the colour balance. The clone tool is another favourite, especially if you have a nice picture but happen to have a pimple outbreak, simply clone the colour of skin right next to it, to make sure the skin tone is correct then place that on top of the unsightly pimple and hey presto –baby smooth skin 365 days a year! Obviously this can be used for more technical things, annoying specks on an image, water droplets etc.
Red eye is another problem that can ruin a photograph, there are some programs that remove it for you, in Photoshop it’s a little more complicated in the fact that you are editing it yourself. There are so many ways to achieve this and sometimes I have found some methods make the eyes look dead and that ruins the picture equally. You will find the best way that suits you to achieve this.
Removing an object is something that I have to do a lot for clients when they have an awards picture for example and have a big fire extinguisher that seemingly sprouts out of someone’s head or my favourite, the plant that makes the person look like ‘side show bob’. All of which can be removed with cloning, copying and pasting and using various layers. Some are easier to do than others depending on the background Again I would recommend doing a search for the best way as my blog would read like some kind of Photoshop manual otherwise.
Cropping images is something that a lot of people get their crop tool and randomly select an area that kind of fits the shape they want to put it in. Depending on what you want to achieve there are different ways of cropping. You can crop someone else out of a picture but make sure you have a nice tight crop on the person you want to focus on instead, or use this method with a bit of cloning to remove them completely.
You can zoom in on a person or object or crop an image to change the focal point. I generally try and keep the focal point in the centre of the image so your eye is drawn to it. Try not to crop an image and have any left overs like bits of other people or an unidentified object creeping in, these will distract the eye from your main focal point.
When using an image of a person in advertising and marketing you should always have the person pointing into the page, not out, so that it draws the reader in and leads them to the copy or promotion. If you can get an image where the model is looking straight to camera, these can uplift response as eye-to-eye contact engages with the reader and again, draws them into the piece of communication.
If your using or showcasing a group of images always try and go for similar lighting, mood or colour scheme as they will sit better together and work in unison rather than being stand alone images. This works best for product images when they are on a white background or a dark background, depending on the product type. In business look at similar business types to your own and see how they use their photography.
Jewellers like to use dark backgrounds to show off diamonds and silver or they put them on a velvet or silk back-drop to add some luxury to the product. They also tend to Photoshop little sparkles to bring out the diamonds, I used to have to do this when I was an art worker, it’s an effective way to add a bit of eye-catching sparkle.
Catalogues tend to use white backgrounds as it tends to be the best background when displaying a variety of products of all shapes, sizes and colours. Often images will be cut out and placed on a white background with a drop shadow put on them to make them appear to lift off the page.
However you decide to edit and show your images make sure they don’t look like they’ve been edited, there’s nothing worse than a badly stitched together photo, make sure they are clear, a high resolution and if you’ve cropped it, you can still tell what it is.
Hope this helps, remember there are so many online tutorials to achieve the desired effect, be brave and give it a whirl!
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One Response to A rough guide to image editing
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Thanks for the link to Britney and her airbrushing, I wish my daughters teen friends could see this. I have already show it to Jessica who was… omg she looks like she has cellulite, to which my response was, of course she does she is a normal healthy woman.
Britney of course was very brave to do this, as you mention she has come in for a lot of criticism in the past, this is a tremendous thing to do.
I am not sure I want to learn how to edit Emily…. I may start looking like the airbrushed Britney