Photo editing


 
 

These days, photos are everything. We have all seen the popularization of filters and editing; except, sometimes, it also needs filters that make the picture look good, but still natural and “unedited.” Being skilled in touching up and altering photos could mean that a career in photo editing could be for you.

 

 

What Is Photo Editing?

Photo editing (also called post-processing or postproduction) is the process in digital photography of making adjustments to photographs in a photo editing program. It’s digital photography’s version of a darkroom, where photos can be tweaked after a photography shoot. Photo editing comes after a photographer has taken photos during a shoot and selected the best photos.

 

Basic Photo Editing Techniques

Most professional photographers use editing software like Adobe Lightroom to organize and edit pictures. Lightroom is a deep and powerful editing tool and combined with Adobe Photoshop, can be used to achieve pretty much any effect you can think of. There are many image editing techniques that can be applied with photo editing software like Lightroom during processing. Some of the editing options involve overall adjustments to your image quality, while others allow you to make targeted changes and adjust only one part of the image. Here are some of the photo editing tools you'll use for basic editing:

  •     White Balance: Adjust temperature and tint so that the colors are correct.
  •     Exposure: Overall brightness or darkness of the image. Highlights control just the brighter parts of the image. Shadows control just the darker parts of the image. Whites set the brightest point in the image. Blacks set the darkest point in the image.
  •     Contrast: The variance between the light and dark parts of the image. Adding contrast makes your darks darker and your brights brighter.
  •     Clarity: Adjust contrast, but just in the middle tones of your photo. Increasing clarity has the effect of enhancing texture and bringing a little grittiness to the image. Conversely, decreasing clarity can give your photos a dreamy quality.
  •     Saturation: How much color information is in the photo. It’s similar to vibrance, which heightens the more muted colors in your image without affecting the colors that are already highly saturated.
  •     Sharpening: A method in which contrast is increased anywhere a light area meets a dark area, thereby making the photo look sharper.
  •     Noise Reduction: A method to smooth out any “noise” in a photo, which is usually caused by severely underexposing and/or shooting at a very high ISO. Noise is not grain and is generally considered undesirable.
  •     Lens Corrections: Corrects distortions made by the lens when capturing the image. Each lens is different, and photo editing software like Lightroom selects the correct setting for your lens automatically.
  •     Perspective Correction: Corrects distortions made by shooting an image that’s not quite square to your subject. For example, if you shoot a building from the ground you will need to tilt your camera up to capture the whole building; in the photo, the building’s walls will look like they are angling toward the center of the frame instead of being straight up and down. Perspective Correction allows you to fix this so that the building looks square.
  •     Grain: This allows you to add grain to an image for creative effect.
  •     Vignette: This allows you to darken or brighten the edges of the image for creative effect.
  •     Radial Filter: This allows you to affect an area inside (or outside) of a circular or oval shape.
  •     Graduated Filter: Same as the radial filter, but with a straight line instead of a circle.
  •     Brush tool: This allows you to “brush” on changes using a mouse or pen/tablet. You can also use brushes to remove blemishes.
  •     HSL: This allows you to fine-tune the hue, saturation, or luminance of a particular color. (For example, you could use HSL to make all the reds in a photo appear more orange, more saturated, and brighter.)

 

What is the Best Photo Editing Software?

Here are my picks for the best photo editing software to try this year:

1. Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop deserves a special mention in any article about the best editing software. After all, the name “Adobe Photoshop” is pretty synonymous with photo editing by now.

It is one of the most popular photo editing software tools on the market. Photoshop is the primary tool for its legions of fans across the world, including designers, artists, and illustrators.

Unlike Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop is meticulously designed for professionals who need all the advanced features in one package. You name an editing feature, and the chances are Photoshop will have it.

KEY FEATURES:

It is practically impossible to include all the features that Photoshop offers. Here are some key features that would help you to make a better decision:

  •     Its masking and selection tools are the best in the business
  •     Incredible cloning and retouching capabilities
  •     Photoshop is incredibly fast even with larger size images
  •     It comes with depth map support for HEIF files and 360 editing tools
  •     Photoshop supports all of the main file formats like JPG, PNG, GIF, as well as raw files
  •     It uses local adjustment layers for non-destructive editing to enhance the appearance of your image

2. Corel PaintShop Pro.

Corel PaintShop Pro is a capable and one of the most inexpensive photo editing software tools out there. Some photographers call it an Adobe Photoshop alternative, but it lacks Photoshop’s most advanced flagship features, including Camera Shake Reduction, 3D modeling, Faces Liquefy, detailed typography, among others.

However, if you want software for basic yet effective image editing, then Corel PaintShop Pro is not a bad option. Just don’t expect it to be as shrewd as its other more advanced counterparts.

KEY FEATURES:

Some of its unique features which make it worth trying are as follows:

  •     Perfect for beginners
  •     360-degree image editing capability
  •     User experience is crisp and smooth
  •     Designers can start working from pre-existing graphic design templates
  •     Extensive library of gradients, picture tubes, colors, pallets, among others

3. Skylum Luminar.

Skylum Luminar AI is an excellent alternative to Adobe Lightroom. As a result, it has been gaining massive popularity among photographers.

It comes with powerful image editing capabilities with more affordable pricing. Its latest version, Luminar 4, is faster and provides a perfect blend of both Lightroom and Photoshop. With one single software, you get the best of both worlds.

KEY FEATURES:

Some of its notable key features include:

  •     Adjustment layers and masks
  •     Offers 24/7 Technical and Sales Support
  •     Fast editing controls with a lesser lag time
  •     Clever shortcuts for automatic management of photographs
  •     Folders are always updated with the content available on the hard disk
  •     Viewing options include filmstrip view, gallery view, and single image view
  •     AI-powered sky enhancer, and accidental AI and sun rays

4. Adobe Lightroom.

Adobe needs no introduction in the world of photo editing. In fact, it continues to be a pioneer in releasing cutting-edge photo editing software updates over the years.

Adobe Lightroom is another powerful editing software by Adobe. Ideally, it is perfect for photographers who want a more straightforward yet capable tool to edit their images.

Unlike Photoshop’s complicated and intimidating user interface, both Lightroom Classic and CC offer a more intuitive and user-friendly interface for image editing.

KEY FEATURES:

Some of its incredible features include:

  •     Sliders are customizable
  •     Blurring and fixing tools
  •     It syncs with multiples devices
  •     Cam and lens-based corrections
  •     Gradient and brush adjustment tools
  •     Professional filters along with numerous presets
  •     Its face detection capability helps in organizing the photographs more efficiently

5. Skylum Aurora HDR.

Skylum Aurora HDR facilitates the efficient merging of imagery to create final shots that look both natural and stunning at the same time. It operates as a standalone app and can be plugged in right into other tools like Adobe Photoshop.

You can also integrate it as an Apple Photo extension. Aside from the traditional methods to create HDR images, Aurora enables photographers to create HDR images from a single file through its AI-based neural network.

KEY FEATURES:

Aurora HDR is a boon for HDR photography as it offers several leading-edge features to create cutting-edge images. Here are some of its key features:

  •     It comes loaded with 20+ tools that help you create stunning HDR images
  •     It smartly cleans noise and enhances depth & details
  •     Its HDR clarity feature optimizes clarity and enhances localized contrast for better results
  •     You can leverage its 80 unique presets to create RAW images into creative masterpieces in a few seconds
  •     You can also use manual mode to take all the control in your hands.