Simple Photography Editing Techniques That Can Dramatically Improve Your Photos!

There is so much to learn when it comes to food photography!  I mean really, did you ever think it would be so hard to photograph food?  I certainly didn’t.

If you haven’t had a chance to browse through our post in the Photography Series ~ Food Photography, Equipment and Props…take a look around!  A lot of great stuff!

Today I want to talk a little bit about editing!  Oh the dreaded word, one more thing I have to do…I know, many of us feel that editing takes so much work and time!

What if I told you you can make a picture drab to beautiful in as little as 1 minutes time, would you try it?  Well come along for these simple editing tips that can help transform your pictures!

Editing Programs/Software and A Great e-Book!

One of the best investments you can make to improve your photography is a good editing software program.  If you are looking for a good quality editing program, I recommend these affordable three and a great Tasty Food Photography e-Book.

• Aperture 3 ~ a great and simple to use editing program for people who have mac or apple computers.
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 ~ a great and simple editing program for people who have PC’s or personal computers.  Lightroom is also available for mac users too.
• Photoshop Elements ~ a step up from Aperture and Lightroom.  Here you start to learn how to work in layers.  It isn’t as expensive as photoshop and gives you a lot more editing capabilities as you progress through your photography journey.
• Tasty Food Photography ~ Here is one of my favorite e-books that really dives into a lot of great stuff. Lindsey over at Pinch of Yum has the most gorgeous photos!  In this e-book, she tackles technical tips, composition tips, lighting tips, prop and set up tips, editing tips and general workflow tips.  There are instructional videos to easily walk you through learning the whole process!  Wether you are brand new to photography or have experience…this book is for everyone!

Touching up the picture In About 1 Minutes Time

So lets move on to the photo of my  No Bake Energy Bars!  When I shot this photo, you can see that the lighting was off a bit.  I also feel that browns can really be touched up a bit with a few quick changes in any editing program.

Before Picture

Now when you look at this before photo, notice how bland it looks.  Where are the colors, the tones, the depth in this picture?

After Picture

Now look at this after photo.  In the video below I show you how quickly you can edit your picture to look as fantastic as this one.  Looks good enough to eat doesn’t it?

How To Video ~  Simple Editing Techniques

Camera Details

As always, I like to include the details of my pictures.  

• For the after picture of the no-bake energy bar, I was new to my camera and didn’t know how to shoot manually yet.  I used the aperture priority mode.  My ISO was 3200 (totally surprised me, remember this is automatic in the aperture priority mode), the aperture was f/6.3 and the shutter speed was 1/25 for this photo.  I did not use a tripod for this photo and I did crop and edit this picture to enhance it a bit.

If you should have any questions about any of these elements, please feel free to ask in the comment sections below.

More Great Photography Post ~ Photography, Equipment, Props & More

You can view more great photography post, in our Entire Series of Food Photography, Equipment, Props & More!   Until next week…

Do you edit your pictures?  What programs or editing software do you like to use?