Tips on Taking "Good" Blog Photos... it's all in the edit!

Let's discuss the topic of taking a "good"  blog photo... shall we?

This is a topic that continually comes up.

I thought I should re-visit how I take my photos, and how I edit them for my blog, as I've changed some of the things I do since the last time I posted on this topic.

Since the last time I posted info on how I do it, I have since switched up my home-made light box to just a couple of very inexpensive sheets of white poster board.

(another idea would be to use a white science-fair type of display board)

And instead of diffusing the light through white tissue on my old home-made light box, I now just have my two lights shining more directly onto my project.

Edited to add:  Here's a helpful link I found through Pinterest on how to make a fold up light box from 3 sheets of white foam board.

Here's a couple of unedited (but resized) photos of what my set-up currently looks like, and note that it holds a two-page 12x12 layout:

Now you can clearly see that the photo needs to be edited.  

I have also changed my editing ways over the last little while.  I used to use Photobucket, but changed to Picnik, which recently closed.  So now I use PicMonkey.com and love it.  It's free... and very easy to use, which is super important to me.

I also should note that I take several photos, then just pick the best, and delete the rest. ;)

Below is an unedited photo of a card I created recently (well not completely unedited, as I've resized it - I'll explain later why I resize all of my photos that I put on my blog).  

I will show you step-by-step how I will edit this photo with PicMonkey.  

(Please keep in mind that I don't really know anything about photo editing or even taking photos... this is just me sharing with you how I do it, with my very lack of knowledge.  I don't claim to know it all... or even the best way how to do this...  lol)

(Also note that every photo seems to have different "needs".  Sometimes you just really need to play with the editing to get it to look good.)

So this is the unedited photo I will use for the editing part of the tutorial, taken the same way as the two page layout shown above.

Not so great, right?

Okay, so I then upload it to PicMonkey for editing.

Under Basic Edits, I will Crop it.

Then I will Rotate it slightly.

(I couldn't capture an image of the grid that pops up while you are rotating your photo, so I don't have a picture of that.)

Next I will adjust the Exposure.

I adjusted the Brightness and Highlights until it was really very washed out, but then pulled some color back in with the Shadows.

Now, I can clearly see that the yellow is not very true to the color of the actual card.

So I'm going to adjust the Colors slightly to warm up that yellow a bit.

Next, I will Sharpen the image:

(you will notice the sharpness better when working in the program, than what's showing in this photo)

Now I would suggest that you Resize your photo, if you are wanting to put it on your blog.

I learned the hard way that Blogger has a maximum allowable upload space, and once that space is used up, you have to then buy more space.  I don't like to have to pay anything for a "free" blog.  ;)

So I am sharing what I learned with you.

I learned that you can upload photos up to 800 pixels, which will not use up any of your allowable storage space with Blogger.

So I now resize all of my photos for my blog to a maximum of 800 pixels.

(this photo of the card below, for example, has been resized to 800 x 682)

Now, the last thing I like to do to my photos is add Text.

Click on the P, which likely stands for PicMonkey, but it is actually the Text tab.

Now you can type in whatever text you would like.

(This is where I add my name and my blog address to my photos.)

You can choose your preferred text color, font, size, ect.

Then just click on Save at the bottom to save the edited photo to your computer.

Now you can upload your edited photo onto your blog...

What do you think?

I likely looks timely and maybe even a little overwhelming...

but it really doesn't take all that long and it is pretty easy.

And look at the huge difference between the photo I started with and the ending photo.

Wow!

Need I say more???

heehee

So, I now expect to see even prettier pictures of all your gorgeous projects, all over blogland... ha!  ;)

Happy creating!  :)

Psst... hey, don't be shy... let me know if you found this helpful...  :)