Photoshop Tips

One of the things I'm really into is taking pictures of Logan.  Have you noticed?  Basically my phone is completely full, my computer is completely full, and all 3 of my cameras are completely full of pictures of Logan.  He's just too darn cute and I don't want to miss a thing!  Anyway, I may have a lot of pictures, but the quality definitely leaves something to be desired.  Usually I just take about 20 or so quick pictures with my phone, choose my favorite and Lo-Fi it in Instagram.  This just isn't cutting it!  If I'm going to be taking SOOO many pictures, I should at least make them look nice, right?   I have a really nice camera, and I got Photoshop for Christmas so I really have no excuse to not have beautiful photographs.  This is something I've been wanting to change for a while, so when I woke up this morning, I decided that today is the day!

I've found quite a few tutorials on Pinterest, but a lot of them seemed overwhelming and not for an uber-beginner like myself.  Then I found this pin.  4 steps, 5 minutes, easy to understand, and great results.  Basically, the perfect thing for me!

So here we go!  These are the 4 steps to take a photo from drab to fab!  In all seriousness, these edits really do make the picture brighter and look more professional.

Step 1:  Hit Command-L (or Control-L for you non-Mac Users) and adjust the levels.  Move the arrows to the very beginning and very end of the little mountain you see.

Step 2:  Make a copy of the background layer and change Layer from Normal to Screen and adjust Opacity to 30%.

Step 3:  Make another copy of the background layer and change Layer from Normal to Soft Light and adjust Opacity to 80%.

Step 4:  Flatten the Image.  Go to Layers > Flatten Image.

That's it!!  And look- the results are amazing!!  We had a little photo shoot this morning (Logan wasn't super into it) and here's what I was able to do with the photos we took- plus a bonus picture from an outing a couple weekends ago! (Before photos on left, after photos on right)

Near the beginning of our photo shoot... happy boy!

Beginning to get a tad upset 

Done with pictures!

Just toddling around DC with Dad!

Aren't the edits amazing?  I'm not lying when I say it only takes 5 minutes.  I'm so glad the quality of my pictures is improving.  Documenting memories is really important to me, and I want my photos to be as beautiful as possible.  I'm no photographer by any means, but hopefully I will be able to make the pictures I do take look a whole lot better!  I always have to remind myself that it's about quality, not quantity!