I’ve meant to share how I edit my photos, but every time I sit down to do it I realize how differently I edit each photo… even though I’m wanting to have the same cohesive look. I want to share multiple examples with you, so this is the start of my new weekend bonus series! I’ll share how I edit one of my photos from the week as a bonus post over the weekend. I will also show you how I edit blog photos, but I wanted to start with an iPhone tutorial because I figured most of you don’t pay for Lightroom.
This weeks photo was shot on an Iphone in Freeport, Bahamas. I did more editing than usual because I really needed to brighten it up and remove the power box eyesore. Photos I take on my iphone usually require more editing because I can’t manually adjust the lens to get the bright look I want. Let me walk you through how I edited it!
EDIT IN SNAPSEED
Use the brush tool and brush the entire photo with exposure on level 7. I like a really bright background and I think it’s quicker to erase the areas I don’t want exposed.
Decrease the exposure to level 3 and go over myself to decrease the exposure on me. Zoom in on areas to be more precise (legs, arms, etc). I do this step to get my natural skin tone back.
Click the selective tool and scroll to get it on saturation. Increase the saturation in the background to bring back the pink hue in the background. I saturated to about 4 o’clock on the saturation circle.
Use the healing tool to quickly edit out eyesores. I tapped on some of the loose rocks and a screw sitting by my foot. I also edited out the crack in the ground by my foot. It’s better to do a small section at a time vs swiping the entire area you want to erase. I want to edit out the large grey power boxes, but this tool doesn’t do a great job with large areas.
Save a copy and open the photo in Facetune.
EDIT IN FACETUNE
Click the patch tool. This takes some time, but this is how I edited out the power boxes. Make sure to turn the circles and size them appropriately to get the lines to match up. This is how you can edit people out of the backgrounds of your photos. I actually re-opened the photo after screenshotting these images and fixed the lower right power box area for the final photo.
Use the detail tool to add in detail to the scallop hemlines, hat, and shoes.
Use the whiten tool to whiten the trim in the background.
Save the photo and open Instagram. Almost done!
EDIT IN INSTAGRAM
I use Instagram for the majority of my photo editing to get the cohesive look I want. I’ve done this for so long that I can run through it pretty quickly now. I always tweak these seven steps to some capacity when editing.
Add a little warmth, a lot of brightness and shadow, sharpen to about 10
Decrease highlights to add back some detail
I actually don’t typically mess with the contract too much, but sometimes when I really expose a photo I add in a little contrast to give the photo more color.
Now my photo is ready to post! I always save the photo to my drafts to keep up with photos I’m wanting to post. I don’t always edit and post right away, so this saves all my edits for later along with a caption I have in mind. If it’s an outfit photo, I run a screenshot of the photo through the Reward Style app to link up the products I’m wearing in LIKEtoKNOWit. I wish I put down my vlog camera for this photo. I saw the pink hut and rushed over with a friend to take the photo before jumping in a taxi and heading to the beach.
Let me know what you think of the new series?
xo Amanda
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