Simple Photo Editing Tips

The photo to the right is what I started with. My subject is the cat, so the base of the chair and the tables aren't needed.

I'll crop the photo before I start editing the color so I don't have to deal with the large areas of white and tan colors. The photo on the left is what I end up with after cropping.

This is the "levels" color adjustment dialoge box from "The GIMP", a popular free image manipulation software package. Levels is also available in Photoshop and many other software packages.

Short Version: Adjust the left and right pointers so they are at the edges of the lines on the graph. Then adjust the center pointer to darken or lighten the photo. Flip the "Preview" checkbox on and off to compare how your photo looks before and after your edits.

Longer Version: Available color values to use in an image range from 0 as the darkest to 255 as the lightest. The histogram graph shows that the darkest color value is around 60 instead of 0. By adjusting the photo to take advantage of the full range of color values, it increases the contrast between the lightest and darkest parts of the photo, and makes the details stand out more.

The left pointer has been adjusted to discard all color values between 0 and 57 (remember, they weren't being used anyway) and stretch out the color values between 57 and 255 to use the full range of 0 to 255. This adjustment causes the entire photo to look darker, so the center pointer has been moved slightly to the left to lighten the mid-tones of the photo.

This is the histogram graph after the level adjustments have been applied. You can see the mid-tones in the center and the shadows to the left have been slightly shifted to the left. It also shows that the color range between 0 to 57 is now used.

Use the unsharp mask filter to create a crisper definition between light and dark areas. The settings to use for unsharp mask varies based on the size of your image. Website photos are usually pretty small, so I use an "Amount" of 0.50 in The GIMP and 50 in Photoshop, with a "Radius" of 1. Leave "Threshold" at 0.