Photographs have been important items for most of us since its invention or creation, as it is through those pictures that we will be able capture precious moments of our lives and reminisce on those moments by just taking a look at those photos after many years. Because of the age of social media, photographs have been more and more popular today since it has become easier for people to take photographs using their smartphones and it has also become convenient for them to share those photos online with friends and family members.

Because of the importance of photographs, most of us would often have to seek the help of a professional photo editor to try and make the quality of our photos even better. While the average person cannot replicate the professional editing that these photo editors do, it is essential for us to at least know the basics of editing so that we know what we specifically need to edit on our photos. Here are some tips to follow if you want to try to edit your own photos.

Learn How to Crop Images

There are instances where our photos would often capture things that aren’t supposed to be there, and if we want to get rid of those unwanted items, we can always crop the photos so that the subject should be more prominent. Most smartphones already have a cropping tool in their photo app, so it is easy to crop photos nowadays through your smartphone. If the photo looks to wide that the subject appears too far away from the camera, you can just crop the photo and get rid of the wide background on the sides. In addition, cropping photos also allows you to get the subject at the center by removing sides that may be too wide. If you have a photobomber on the side of you selfie, you can crop the photo too to get rid of the photobombing stranger or friend.

Know How to Adjust Sharpness

If the subject of your photo is too blurry, you can adjust the sharpness so that the details of the subject will be clearer. Like cropping, adjusting the sharpness of a photo has become easier thanks to being included in the photo app of most smartphones. However, knowing when to and not to sharpen images can be difficult since sharpening a subject on the photo can also mean that you would sharpen the background and the sides of the photo. If you are just using a smartphone for editing, sharpening a photo would mean that you would sharpen the whole image, but if you are using an editing program on your computer, you will be able to sharpen only the parts of the photo that you want to edit. If you want to try editing photos using an editing program, there are many free software online that you can use like clippingmagic.com so that you can learn how to edit without paying for anything.

Adjust Exposure for Clarity

Besides sharpness, you can also make photos clearer by adjusting exposure, which could either make your photographs darker or lighter depending how much exposure you add. If the photos are too bright, you can lower the exposure of the photos, and you can also increase the exposure if the photos are too dark. Finding the perfect balance in exposure is essential in editing the perfect photo, although mastering exposure settings can be quite difficult if you are only using your smartphone. So, it is essential that you should know how to edit photos using an editing program so that you would have more and better options. In addition to exposure, you should also take into consideration the adjustment of contrast, which would allow you to set the photo if you want it to be softer or sharper. Combining contrast with exposure and sharpness will enable your photos to have a clearer image.

Understand White Balance

While the setting mentioned above, besides cropping, adjusts exposure levels, white balance is a setting that adjusts color levels, which means that it can determine the combination of colors that will appear on the photos. You can say that white balance is like a filter in photos, wherein it can change the overall look of the photos based on color. Most phones don’t have a white balance setting, so although the combination of temperature and tint settings found in photo apps can be considered as adjusting white balance. However, for the best results, a photo editing software should be used for adjusting white balance.

These are four tips that you can follow if you are just a beginner in photo editing, but there are more tips online that you can read once you understand the basics. By reading this guide, you can already see that editing photos is actually not that hard, but you would need a proper editing program if you have to produce the best edited photos.