Calling a post “how to edit your digital photos” is like taking a can of worms and opening it. See there, look at all those worms, wiggling and jiggling around all over my post…
A bit like last week when we tackled the awesome-hugeness that is “how to organise your digital photos” – there were worms involved there as well, but we need to go there because these days just about every ‘amazing’ shot you see online has been edited to some degree using a photo-editing techniques. Yep, everyone is photoshopping their lives into submission – mainly to hide flaws in their photography skills, rather than their face – and whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s a real thing.
So, let me just say straight up: there are lots and lots and lots of ways to edit your digital photos. Lots. To keep things simple and brief, I’m going to talk about 5 online photo-editing sites, 2 free photo-editing downloads and 2 buy-it-and-be-semi-professional photo-editing packages. There are lots more than these out there… lots. I invite you to share your faves in the comments! For the record, I use Canva, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements 10 for all the images I create for my blog.
Free photo-editing sites
Rollip
Rollip has been one of my first picks for ages, mainly because it’s so darn easy to turn an average photo into an interesting one. It’s like Instagram on your computer and, like Instagram, it’s as easy as loading a photo, selecting a filter and clicking ‘download’. I used the ‘Vintage Yellow’ filter in the image above. Nice!
Phixr
Phixr is simple and easy to use, has lots of ready-to-go filters combined with adjustments you can make all your own and it connects to Photobucket, Flickr and Facebook, making it easy to upload photos. For the above image, I used a ‘Phosphor’ colour effect combined with a white curved border (which admittedly looks naff in the side-by-side collage here) and increased brightness to 110%. Simple!
Pixlr
The full Pixlr Editor requires some knowledge of editing, but the Express version is easy to use and fun to play around in. Like Rollip above, Pixlr-o-matic allows you to add retro-effects (that have cute retro-names to match) at the click of a button. I used “Sophia” for the above image.
Splashup
Splashup looks a lot like Pixlr Editor – kind of a pared down version of the might that is Photoshop. Like Gimp below, Splashup would be a good option to have a go at before you purchase the ‘real thing’.There’s a lot to learn to get your photos looking schmick (like Photoshop, Splashup isn’t exactly intuitive) but luckily there are a thousand pioneers only too happy to help you with tutorials. I had neither the time nor inclination to follow any of them, so I couldn’t work out how to use Splashup for the life of me (hence no picture!) There is apparently a Splashup Light version to download to your computer, presumably a little easier to use than Splashup, but I didn’t download to find out!
Picmonkey
Moving away from the Photoshop wannabes and back to easy-peasy button-clicking, you can add words, use filters, crop out bits you don’t like and make a neat collage using Picmonkey. They have a neat blog attached, that helps you out with all sorts of tutorials and tips. There are loads of effects, but some require you to upgrade to a “Royale” membership, which only costs a few dollars a month, depending on what you’re after. I used a free “Dusk” effect at 40% in the image above. No, I can hardly tell the difference either.
My pick: Canva
The new, gorgeous, clever kid on the block the rest of the street wishes had never moved in. I absolutely love Canva and highly recommend it. They’ve got some great tutorials to walk you through how to use the interface AND get you started on the basics of design. With this website on your bookmarks bar, you can basically change your so-so photos into something to wow your readers.
Free photo-editing downloads
Picasa
Last week we looked at Picasa for organising your photos, but there is a reasonably good editing tool attached as well. Picasa is especially good for adjusting light, contrast and colour or adding a number of filters to your image; you can also crop and resize your images and, of course, share them with the world via Facebook, Picasa Web albums and anything Google related. It has a good “auto-fix” option that is adjustable – for the image above I just used the auto-fix and softened back the colour fix. Too easy. The software has a captions and a collage creation tool, but it’s not that great and you’d be better off going online to Picmonkey.
Gimp
All paths pretty much lead to Photoshop when you’re looking at digital editing. Either you’re using it or you’re using something that’s ripped off a lot of it’s know-how. Enter Gimp. It’s as close to Photoshop as you’re ever going to get for free…
Photo-editing packages to buy
Adobe Lightroom
The might of Lightroom is in it’s photo organising powers, but it does a mighty fine job of editing them while they’re staying neat and tidy. Firstly, it allows you to work with RAW images (producing the highest image quality) and secondly it uses the processing power of your computer, rather than your camera, to produce the finest adjustment for tone, contrast, colour and white balance. I’m still learning Lightroom, but in the image above, I played around with presets, using the “bleached bypass” colour preset and tweaking the highlights, exposure, clarity and contrast. Even at learner stage, you can see that the depth of what you’re able to do with this tool is far greater than with any of the freebies I’ve reviewed above. Forking out for Lightroom means you’re getting serious about your photography… which is rather exciting, don’t you think?
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is the ‘big gun’ that most of us have heard of. It’s a tricky beast to learn, but once mastered (I’m working on it!), it allows you to do pretty much anything you’ve ever wanted to your images (including weird colour stuff like I’ve experimented with above!!). You can develop your own ‘style’ of processing using Photoshop settings… something many professional photographers use to their advantage. Lightroom and Photoshop ‘talk’ to each other, allowing you to process your images in Lightroom and then tweak and play with them in Photoshop. Fortunately for us, there are loads of great Photoshop tutorials online that will get us started.
Now, if you’re still not keen to go down the path of photo-editing after reading that lot, I can only urge you to jump on one of the free online sites and have a play. Some people don’t like the idea of ‘photoshopping’ images of their kids or family, but surely everyone would love to pop a cute filter on a favourite image just to see what sort of effect they can get. I will warn you, though… it’s addictive!
Do you digitally edit your photos?