5 Simple Ways To Improve Your Work With Post Processing

Getting the shot right in-camera is always recommended, however it is easy to miss the odd twig or hot spot that'll pull attention away from your main subject. As a result, a few tweaks in photo editing software's often needed so we've put together a quick list of editing tutorials you can use to improve your shots.

Cropping

Sometimes an image can be improved with a little more consideration to the framing of the main subject as if there's too much space surrounding it, the emphasis can be lost. However, it's not always easy to get what you want in the frame without including surrounding detail that's distracting and this is where the Crop tool comes in useful. For more tips on using the Crop tool, have a look at these tutorials:

• How To Use The Crop Tool To Improve Photos
• Introduction To Photoshop's Crop Tool

Cloning

Using the Clone tool is a great way to tidy up your image. You can use it to remove distracting branches, and blades of grass as well as small imperfections on your subject, such as dirt, that are impossible to remove when taking your shots. You can even use the tool to remove the majority of objects from a scene so you're just left with a landscape shot. We have two tutorial on using the Clone tool which you can find here:

• How To Use The Clone Tool In Photoshop
• Photoshop Tutorial: Removing Unwanted Objects

Sharpening

If your shots look a little 'soft' you can improve their sharpness during post production. On site we have two tutorials: one for Photoshop and the other covers editing shots in Lightroom. Click the following links to learn more about sharpening:

• How To Sharpen Images In Lightroom 3
• Introduction To The Unsharp Mask Tool

Repairing

With some shots, cloning can take a very long time and you'll find it much easier to use one of the other tools on offer in most photo editing software programmes. One such tool is the Lasso Tool which Peter Bargh used on an image by Patricia Hinton which had problems with highlights burning out. You can read the full tutorial here:

• Repair An Image With The Lasso Tool In Photoshop

We also have a tutorial that covers repairing a macro shot of a butterfly. Various tools are used in the tutorial which includes Selection tools, the Free Transform tool and Layer Masks. Click the following link to read the tutorial:

• Replacing A Damaged Butterfly Wing

Boosting

Sometimes you'll take a shot and when you get home realise it needs a little more punch and there are a couple of ways you can do this in Photoshop. In our first tutorial we'll show you how to make basic changes with the Levels feature to adjust the overall tone of the shot. The second tutorial looks at Brightness / Contrast adjustments before moving on to the Dodge and Burn tools:

• Basic Level Adjustment In Photoshop
• Contrast And Brightness Adjustments In Photoshop

More a more advanced tutorial and the Dodge & Burn tools have a look at this article by Robin Whalley:

• Using The Dodge And Burn Tools In Photoshop

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