Are you always looking for ways to improve your photos? Searching to find ways to take them to the next level? Do you often wonder what your photos are missing? If you’re wanting to improve your photos, we have 5 easy tips that you can use today to start seeing dramatic results!
Cropping: Enhance Focus & Composition
There’s no easier way to completely transform a photo you’ve taken with your digital camera from Beachcamera.com than by cropping it. Cropping can remove unwanted or distracting areas, improve the composition, or help emphasize a focal point. If you plan on doing significant cropping, try to start out with as large an image as possible. Because the more you crop, the more you reduce your image quality and resolution. Pixilation can occur, especially if you try to enlarge the cropped portion. A good rule of thumb when cropping is to follow the rule of thirds. Imagine that your photo is divided into thirds, both vertically and horizontally, with four lines. The four points where those lines would intersect form guidelines to place your focal point, or the most important area of your image.
Blurring: Enhance Background Images
There will be times you’ll want to highlight images as featured elements in your designs, but they don’t always have to be the center of attention. They can also work well in a more behind-the-scenes role- literally. That’s right, we’re talking about backgrounds. Photos can make for visually interesting backgrounds in a wide variety of designs. Apply some blurring to create a smooth, uncluttered background. With some light to moderate blurring, you can retain recognizable shapes or scenes in your background photos. With a dramatic blurring effect, you can create a soft, abstract wash of colors and vague shapes. This could be a good option if you want something more dynamic than a solid-color background.
Saturation: Enhance (or Reduce) Color Intensity
Photographers and designers will most commonly adjust an image’s saturation settings to kick up its colors a notch. Saturation has to do with color intensity, so more saturated colors are bolder and brighter while less saturated colors are more faded. Complete desaturation leaves you with a black-and-white photo.
Contrast: Enhance Highlights and Shadows
Increasing contrast is a good way to make your image pop and add a little drama. Upping the contrast produces lighter lights, darker darks, and a wider range of tones in between. This will make your image taken with your DSLR from Beachcamera.com look just a little better than what you’d see in real life. On the other hand, reducing contrast can give an image a flatter, even tone.
Brightness: Enhance Overall Lighting
Lighting can be one of the hardest things to get right, even for professional photographers. While it’s best to start out with an image that has been correctly exposed, sometimes you’ll end up with a photo that’s just a little too dark. You may be able to improve it by manipulating the brightness setting. Keep in mind that editing the brightness will make everything brighter or darker. This should be done a little at a time and with attention to not creating areas that are overly bright. You can often improve and balance your results by adjusting the contrast at the same time.
Whether you’re working on social media graphics, blog images, or personal photos, getting the imagery right will be key to a successful design.