Everything looks better to the naked eye and that beauty doesn’t always translate over to a picture no matter how hard you try to make the perfect indoor setting. Here is a little tip that I recently learned to help balance your pictures out and any newbie (AKA Me) can do it.
Using Pixlr, open your image and create a new layer. All of your changes will take place on the new layer so if you mess up and it can’t be changed it is easy to just delete the layer and start over!
Under the adjustment menu, select levels. Or you can shortcut using Ctrl+L.
What in the heck is this right? Without getting technical, it is your picture’s histogram. Pulling the left slider in will add more shadows to your picture and pull the left slider in will give you more highlights. BE CAREFUL with making adjustments because too much will ruin your picture. An OK rule of thumb is to put them on the slopes like I did above. This isn’t always true but you will have to figure it out for each picture that you do.
So your picture is brightened but is now a little too red so you need to adjust the white balance of the picture.
The adjustments are very small but you can tell the difference. The one on the left is the original. The one in the middle is with adjusted levels and the one on the right has the red lowered with the adjusted levels. I am not an expert or even good at editing so if I can do it then anyone can!
PS: You could Google a more technical explanation of this process but this is meant more as something newbie to newbie. I think it is easier to understand this way if you are just starting out.
Loading tweets...
1 comment
1 ping
Pam
August 11, 2012 at 7:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thanks again for the simple explanation!
Pam recently posted..Back To School with an Overland Equipment Laptop Case
[Reply]
Presentation is King in Food Photography #GrillingisHappiness #SoFabU » Mallerys Deals | Mallerys Deals
August 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] don’t think that I could stress enough the importance of using Pixlr to ‘enhance’ your photos. I took all of my pictures outside in natural light but a [...]