Whether you’re a professional photographer, or just posting photos on social media, you probably like to edit your images in some way or another to make them look “better” before making them public. Here are some common photo editing mistakes you may be making and how to fix them!
Less is More
The old rule of thumb still stands and is a good base to use when photo editing. Too many edits will make your photo unnatural, blur lines and create color contrasts that dull the photo. You don’t want to fall victim to over-editing. The absolute best photos start with a good photo, when your camera from Beachcamera.com is set right and the lighting is perfect.
Over Saturating
In order to add more color and pop to a photo, most people raise the saturation slider too high. When doing so, the colors usually look unrealistic, especially the skin tones which tend to be too orange or yellow. One tip to prevent this would be to use the vibrance slider instead, or use the saturation slider with moderation. If you have the option to increase the saturation of certain colors only, you can just play with those sliders so the overall look of your image will stay natural.
Skin Smoothing Techniques
When you want to smooth skin features, take it slow and work next to the original image so you can easily identify when you have over-edited and the skin begins to look plastic. The plastic Barbie doll look is a very common mistake that new photo editors make when trying to get the appearance of perfectly smooth skin.
Over Processing the Eyes
Usually the eyes are the main focus of a photo and you want them to look sharp and crisp. However, over doing it might make your image look unrealistic. Use your sharpening tool with precaution and make sure the eyes are consistent with the sharpening of the other features of the face. If the eyes are too sharp they will look unrealistic.
Keep Backgrounds Crisp
We all love those timeless photos where the surreal background creates the perfect fade into the main subject of your photo, but this can be a very tricky effect to create in editing. It can often look very unnatural and says more about over-editing than taking good quality photos with your DSLR from Beachcamera.com. If you want a fade in, it is best to set the camera and get the quality you want when you take the shot.
Keep Monochrome Light
When getting the perfect monochrome feature, less is often better and you want to scale it down as little as possible. Using deep sepia tones are often unnatural and will create a photo that is muddy and overdone.
Everyone has their own process of editing that works for them. While there is no right or wrong editing style, the above photo editing mistakes are just a few things to look out for when processing your images.