The key to having a successful website is learning how to make use of great design and photography. Unfortunately, many individuals are put off by the fact that they would need to use Photoshop in order to achieve this. People usually perceive this piece of software as being extremely difficult to work with and prefer to either delegate or to simply use templates. However, what happens when you have to adjust personal content in order to post it?
Let’s consider sharing photos. Not everyone has great cameras that can make a photo look amazing. This creates situations when the author needs to adjust his or her work in order to have the desired impact on a blog or a website. This is where the need to use Photoshop comes in.
The good part is that anyone can learn how to use it. Some things may take more time than others, but the basic types of modifications can be done in under 60 seconds.
One of the most basic, and useful, skills that you have to learn is how to brighten photos. This allows you to take ordinary images and make them look truly astounding.
In order to do this, you have to follow a few simple steps:
- Use the “Curves” function in order to brighten photos;
The simplest way to brighten photos is by using a tool included in Photoshop, called “Curves”. You can access this function by going to the “Image” tab, and then navigating to “Adjustments”->”Curves”, or by simply using the shortcut “Command” + ”M”.
Once you’ve started the tool, a graph will appear on the screen. You can brighten the image by dragging the line shown on it. Keep in mind that you will have to move the line quite a bit before you will see a considerable difference. Also, make sure that the “Preview” option is checked. Once you’re happy with how bright the image is, simply click “OK” and move to the next step.
- Set the desired brightness;
Go to the “Image” menu, then click on “Adjustments”, and finally on “Brightness/Contrast”. Use this tool by dragging the “Brightness” scale to the right. Move it until you’re happy with the result, and then move to the next step to correct the image in terms of color.
- Color correction
If you take a close look at your photo, after you’ve increased its brightness, you will find that the colors are a bit different. This usually happens when the lighting is not perfect from the beginning. Luckily, it can be corrected without too much work. In order to restore the original look of the photos, you must again navigate to “Image”->”Adjustments”, and select the “Color Balance” tool. Alternatively, you can use the “Command” + “B” keyboard shortcut.
Once you’ve launched the tool, you will be able to modify the look of the image by dragging the sliders away from the colors that you want to decrease. Look closely at your image and try to remove any abnormal tint that may have resulted from increasing the brightness. The best way to do this is to play with the sliders until you’re happy with the outcome.
- Sharpening
The final step is to slightly sharpen the image in order to make it look crisper. Click on “Filter”, and then navigate to the “Sharpen” function in the menu with the same name. The shortcut for this one is “Command” + “F”.
This having been said, take care not to over-sharpen the image as it will distort the image.
In conclusion, this is a general tutorial. Use your own settings with your own photos. There is no perfect recipe in terms of color or brightness value. You will have to choose the perfect values for you every time you edit a new photo.
Follow these steps and you will see that Photoshop is nothing to fear. Using the software may take some time in order to get used to the more complex functions; however, anyone can quickly edit a few photos. Furthermore, the fact that you can preview the changes as you are making them means that you can avoid mistakes.
As an extra tip, if you intend to edit photos that you will upload to a website or a blog, it’s a good idea to also change the resolution of the image. This can be done by clicking on “Image Size” in the “Image” menu and then setting the value to 72.
Lastly, click on “File” and then on “Save for Web”, in order to save your photo. This will enable you to upload beautiful photos that will not slow down your website.