Best ideas for post-processing

You may be a professional photographer with an impressive portfolio and years of

experience to back you, but do you think that your snaps in the raw format are enough to

grab you deserved recognition and clients. If so, it‟s a misconception. Even when you snap

perfectly, unwanted elements may sneak in, lighting may deceive or shaking may happen.

So, the photos must be subjected to processing before final submission to clients. Post-

processing basically involves editing of snapped photos for creating the final, retouched

product. See some of the most recommended actions as well as photography post

processing tips for editing fundamentals to complex tweaking.

File formats and editing tools

While shooting in .jpg mode, you can specify image profiles pertaining to contrast,

saturation, and sharpness to be applied by the camera to captured picture. It is

recommended that the image be shot in „Raw‟ mode so that you can edit the image to your

preferences overriding camera pre-sets.

Adobe Lightroom is an authoritative tool for carrying out complicated photo management

and digital photography editing actions.

IPhoto for Mac is common on Apple platform but it impedes the migration of edited photos

to other sophisticated platforms for further processing.

Picasa, Google’s free photo editing app, is simple to use and facilitates lots of complex

editing. Snapseed by Google, for Android and iOS mobile platforms, is a free tool that comes

bundled up with incredible editing features. There is nothing called standard tool for

photography professionals. Different scenarios demand different tools to work with.

1. Cropping

Crop tool facilitates changing of image‟s aspect ratio and size to help publish in various

formats. A picture can be cropped into square form from rectangular form.

You need to select the „Crop‟ tool, specify the area to be kept with mouse/ swipe and then

changes are to be applied. The tool‟s application is almost similar across various editing

platforms available.

2. Levelling

Forgetting to level the image‟s horizon line is annoying but can be resolved with cutting edge

tools offered by photo editors. Levelling of a shot can have issues if the camera is balanced

improperly. The eye picks up this deformity easily. The level tool in Lightroom is embedded

in crop tool wherein rotating the image allows levelling adjustment. The level tool causes the

image to be covered with grid for accurate alignment

In Snapseed, Rotate command accomplishes the desired levelling. The aesthetic quotient of

the image can be enhanced with levelling and the intended effect can be achieved within

seconds for improving your photography.

3. Vignetting

Vignetting involves darkening or lightening certain parts of the picture to divert the attention

to its theme. Certain tools force the Vignetting effect to take place along the corners only

whereas tools available in Lightroom and Snapseed allows for selective retouching of the

image.

The editable area „Center Size‟ can be enlarged or shrunk. „Inner Brightness‟ allows

brightening of selected area whereas „Outer Brightness‟ allows darkening of area outside

edited area. The same can be done in reverse manner. Vignetting is ideal for portraits.

4. Shadows and Highlights

An image‟s dark patches are referred to as „shadows‟ whereas brighter parts are called

„highlights‟. The „Shadow‟ and „Highlight‟ tool is meant for altering the aforesaid parameters.

The tool provides exceptional results on raw images as compressed .jpg image causes

information pertaining to these parameters to be largely discarded for reducing the size.

Snapseed photo editing software makes the tool available within „Tune Image‟ setting.

Proper adjustment allows reducing the brightness of overexposed patches and diverting

focus on shadows. Drastic shadow brightness increase can lead to revealing of too much

noise, thus rendering the image colour distastefully saturated.

5. Contrast adjusting

Contrast demarcates the lighter and darker image parts. The demarcating line becomes

more distinct by enhancing contrast. Silhouetting factor is sometimes increased by tweaking

contrast above 20 (not desirable in all images). Adjustment of contrast is vital to assure good

quality pictures. If you have sound ideas for post-processing, you will easily sense the

level of alterations needed and this is too crucial.

6. Colors

Adjusting colours allows altering snap‟s warmth w.r.t colour, hue and saturation of particular

colours. „Saturation‟ tool alters intensity of colour and zero saturation leads to black and

white picture. Overwhelming colour intensity can be achieved with optimum saturation. You

have to tweak the saturation slider optimally to strike the perfect balance and confer on the

image a natural look. Saturation option is available in Lightroom‟s basic adjustments panel

and under Snapseed‟s “Tune Image”.

7. Correcting blemishes

You can easily weed out unwanted blemishes from the image with healing tool which offers

best results for tiny, distinct blemishes enveloped by colour uniformity. The healing tool

replaces the blemish with colour from surrounding portion after doing needful calculations.

The result is thus obtained is impeccable. This tool can be used for removing any kind of

blemishes and can turn out to be very useful to achieve precision.

For attaining perfection, post processing is inevitable and hence it must not be overlooked,

no matter how much expertise you have as a photographer. Professional photography

editing companies make available to you stellar quality image enhancement services and the

investment would really be worthy if you zero in the best service provider.