How-To: Editing Pictures for Dummies Part 3

PART THREE OF HOW I EDIT MY PICTURES COMING AT YOU A YEAR LATER! My editing style has significantly changed since part 1 and part 2 of this series (and I also use a DSLR vs. my phone), but you'll notice I no longer give a poop about making everything white. Now I gravitate more towards warmer, 'vintage' tones. This isn't a drastic difference, but you'll find a before (2nd picture) and after (1st picture) of a picture I recently posted on Instagram below:

PEEP THE STEPS BELOW:

1.  Tune Image - I still start all my editing in Snapseed. I first adjust the brightness, contrast, ambiance, highlights and shadow by going to Tools > Tune image.

2.  Details - Just to sharpen and add structure to the image a little, I adjust that under Details.

3.  Grainy Film - This is a feature I recently discovered a couple months ago, but has been my HG since. I toggle between X03 and X04 usually depending on what kind of tone I'm leaning towards (here I ended up going with X03). I adjusted the grain and style strength to my liking!

4.  Grainy Film again - I play with Grainy Film back and forth until I get the tone I want. Here, I added a bit of X04 to add some warmth back to the image. 

5.  Back to Tune Image - Grainy Film tends to over contrast or over shadow the image, so I go back to Tune Image and adjust the brightness, contrast, ambiance, highlights and shadows until I get the preferred look. You'll notice here that I reduced the contrast and shadows to enhance the details of my outfit.

6.  HDR Scape - Sometimes I like playing around with this feature on a low filter, just to enhance my surroundings.

7.  Tonal Contrast - If I feel the picture needs a good sharpen, I use Tonal Contrast (but in this case I'm not).
8.  Brush - I then adjust certain areas with the Brush tool (highlighting my hair, darkening my skin, etc.).

9.  Facetune - Now I'm done with Snapseed and am onto Facetune! Facetune is great for sharpening certain areas I want to put into focus, or if I have a stubborn blemish I want to remove (luckily in this case, minimal edits in Facetune were required). 
10.  Instagram - All final edits are made in Instagram before I post - I usually add the Aden filter (on 20%), adjust brightness if needed, lower the warmth to bring back the blue's, and play with color, fade, highlights, shadow and sharpen until IT'S JUST RIGHT. 

And voila the final result:

Now holla at me with YOUR editing tips!

How-To: Editing Pictures for Dummies Part 2

When I started blogging, the one question I wondered the most was: "How do other bloggers maintain a white feed, and how do they ensure the white is the same white across all their pictures?". Sometimes 'white' can look blue, grey, and other times just downright yellow. I've only recently started adopting this technique that allows me to keep my white consistent across my Instagram feed.

Here's the original of the above picture:

Some more before and afters:

Another one:

Also, perspective is everything:

Clearly there's a common theme here (I'm hungry):

Before I get into the details, below is the ice cream photo after basic Snapseed edits. For a step-by-step tutorial on how I edit in Snapseed, check out my previous post. I didn't desaturate the background here, which I normally would have done to get rid of the unwanted yellow tones.

So what's the technique? Facetune! I simply use the Whiten feature to bring out the white in the photo. I zoom in to cover smaller areas, and toggle back and forth between Whiten and Erase to ensure I don't go over areas I want to maintain colour (like my hands).

And that's it! It's nothing new or innovative, and many bloggers utilize this technique to highlight the white in their photos. Simple, but effective! My editing process has changed drastically since I first started blogging, and I'm sure it'll continue to evolve. I would love to know what some of your favourite editing apps are!

How-To: Editing Pictures for Dummies

I've been getting a lot of questions around how I edit my photos for Instagram and the blog. When I started, I was simply using Instagram to edit, but I've recently discovered the holy grail of all editing apps.

For comparison, this is what the above photo looked originally:

Mind blown yet? Here are a few more before and afters:

Struggles of maintaining a consistent feed!

No Photoshop required

#TrustIssues - Never trust what you see in pictures, folks.

So, how!?

Snapseed my friends, is the best editing app out there. I hashtag VSCO in all my photos, but I don't actually use the app and find no use for it - unpopular opinion, I know. Let me take you through the steps I take to edit using an old photo:

Step One - Tune Image: I usually increase the brightness, contrast, saturation and highlights to my liking; Then lower ambiance, shadows and warmth [As shown in second photo]

What it now looks like compared to the original [slight difference]:

Step Two - Details: I like to increase structure and sharpen slightly

Step Three - Brush: My feed has a lot of white/grey hues, so I like to desaturate the background by lowering saturation to -10 and highlighting the entire background. Toggle the preview (eye button) to see where you're colouring. When I get close to the subject (in this case it's me), I zoom in to make the brush smaller, and continue to outline around it.

Change the saturation brush to 'eraser' to go over areas you did not want to touch. While in Brush mode, I also like to use the exposure brush at 0.3 to slightly brighten the background, and the dodge & burn brush to expose/darken certain areas. 

It now looks like this: 

Step Four - Finish off in Instagram - As the last few steps, I usually apply the Ludwig filter at 10-15%, and slightly adjust as needed. 

And voila! Final result against the original:

Hope you found this helpful! Everyone has a preference when it comes to editing; this is simply how I like to edit my photos. If you have any tips, let me know in the comments!