Professional photographers charge anywhere from $100 to $200 for a finished, fully-edited photo.
Portrait photos are a staple for most American families. So why not learn editing like a pro? Editing photos yourself is cheaper than paying someone to do the editing for you.
This 5 step guide will have you editing portrait photos like a pro in no time.
Editing Portrait Photos
Most photographers should understand programs like Photoshop and Lightroom, but novices, like yourself, don’t need professional training.
Make sure you understand the program you’re using when you’re editing portrait photos.
1. Using Lightroom
The difference between Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom is simple. Photoshop is a program used for photo editing. Lightroom is a subset of Adobe Photoshop and works for editing photos too.
Lightroom does more than photo editing. It helps your export, import, and organize your photos. It’s a photo managing program as well as a photo editor.
While using Lightroom, you might notice that you can soften the skin of the person in a photo. But you might not know how to do that. learning how to soften skin in lightroom isn’t difficult.
2. Use the Dodge and Burn Tool
The Dodge and Burn tool are one of the many tools at your disposal while editing in Photoshop. But using these tools might damage your photos.
Learning how to use the Burn and Dodge tool is a great step. Create new layers for edits using the Burn and Dodge tool. The Burn and Dodge tool is helpful, but it can hold a lot of power, too. It’s used to adjust dark, mid, and light tones and add variety.
Don’t forget to name them accordingly. That way, you can delete the layer if you make a mistake.
3. Presets
Using presets helps speed up your portrait editing process. presets might add different colors and tones.
They’ll also add more adjustments to the program. You might want to adjust the settings according to what you want.
Presets in Lightroom will give you a great start when editing photos. Using presets helps you save time on repetitive edits, too. Using photo editing presets in Lightroom might save your time when editing a group of photos at once.
4. Good Composition
Practicing good composition while taking portraits is a good start when learning how to edit. If you’re editing with bad composition, the Rotate and Crop tool will help. The Straighten Lines tool might help as well.
Creating a good composition helps during the editing process. If you have a great composition, this helps add depth to the photo while editing.
5. Healing Brush
Learning to use the Healing Brush could save you a lot of time during editing. Using the Healing Brush lets you pick the spots in the image you want to edit.
This tool is great for fixing blemishes on someone’s skin. It removes pimples and inconsistencies on the person’s skin.
All You Need Is Practice
You don’t need a professional photographer to take an interest in portrait photography. Following these 5 easy steps will help when editing portrait photos.
Using different tools while photo editing is a great way to add variety to your finished product. Learning how to use Lightroom is also a great way to start. It’s also important to practice good composition.
For more articles about photography and using Lightroom, please visit our website.
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