3 Basic Photoshop Tips for Bloggers

January 9, 2012

16 Comments

by

Topics: Blog, Blogging Tips

Editor´s note: The following is a guest post from our amiga, fellow #LatinaBlogger and designer-in-chief, Dariela from MamiTalks. We´re excited for her new venture at Dari Design Studio…¡Felicidades!

Do you find yourself excited about the photos you take and then when you see them on your post they don’t look as good as you wanted? Do you wish you could edit them but don’t know how? Well, you are in luck because today I am bringing you some tips to make those photos POP in your posts editing with Adobe Photoshop.

TIP #1 Adjust the Brightness and Contrast of you photo.

Always think of the photo straight out of the camera as a starting point, you usually need to make some corrections to it, even if they are tiny. To correct the Light there are many ways to do it in Photoshop.

Here is one: Go to the top Menu > Image > Adjustments > Levels. Then, depending on the picture, if the photo is too light move the right top arrow towards the middle and the middle top arrow towards the left, if the photo is too dark move the middle arrow towards the right and the left arrow towards the right. Play with them until you get the desired tone. Don’t worry, there is always the Undo command !

Photoshop tip Dari Designs

Photo straight out of the camera

“Levels” Applied

TIP #2 Always crop if necessary.

Some photos really don’t need cropping at all but most of the photos do. Our example up here needs some cropping. The girl (Maya) is looking happy and cute, but she needs to be the main focus of the picture, there is too much space on the sides and bottom of the picture (plus the distracting red cup!) that are not giving us any information that we really need.

We use the Crop Tool located in the tool bar and drag a rectangle on the picture so that Maya is the main focus. (As a rule, try not to center the main image but to give it a little “air” on one side, that way it’s more interesting to the eye and balanced.)

Cropping the photo

After cropping the photo

TIP #3 Clean the photo.

Some pictures will have parts that you wish weren´t there (like the red cup and the top stripe of grass.) With some practice and depending on each photo you can take those objects away! We use the Clone Stamp tool.

It works as if you were using a real stamp, but you first have to tell Photoshop what will be on your stamp. Simply Alt or Option Click on what you would like the background to look like with the Clone Stamp. For example, in our photo here I clicked on the beige ground close to the top grass so it would all look like that up there. And then start “painting” (click and hold) the area that you want to go away (in this case the top grass stripe). If the size of the Stamp is too little or too big you can choose a different brush size by going to the “Brushes” palette under Window > Brushes.

Cleaning the photo

All cleaned!

After this we can still add some different “looks” or effects to the photo depending on the purpose and the type of photo. This picture can look very nice in a light vintage effect or a subtle black and white…

At Dari Design Studio, we are now offering Photoshop Web Classes were you can learn how to apply effects like these, how to make different types of collages like this one up here and lots of great tips in a group class specially designed for bloggers! You can take the class from anywhere in the world on your computer depending on your level. You can ask questions during the class and you can work on a photo at the same time as well. The groups are of 10 people maximum and the classes last 1 ½ hour.

Take a look here and decide which one is right for you. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Giveaway!

Congratulations to the winners: Lisa Cifuentes and Muy Bueno Cookbook!

Latina Bloggers Connect is giving away one Photoshop Web Class of your choice to two lucky bloggers. To enter all you need to do is visit Dari Design Studio and then come back to tell us in a comment which of the Photoshop Web Classes you want to take first.

For one additional entry, join the LBC Community (if you haven’t already) and either leave a comment in any of the forums or start your own. You must leave an additional comment on this post telling you did so.

Contest closes at midnight PST on Sunday, Jan. 15th, 2012.

Two winners will be chosen using random.org and will be notified via email.

No related posts.

16 Comments | Leave your own

No related posts.

  7. Tracy

    Excellent tips! I don’t use Photoshop since I got too comfortable in a program called ArcSoft Photo Studio to ever want to switch – but I do all the things you suggested to my photos and have a lot of fun doing it… When I’m on a computer that doesn’t have my favorite photo editing program on it, I use Picnik.com which has a lot of cool features.

    Have fun with the web classes!!

    Reply

  12. Pingback: Friday Featured Posts About Blogging & Social Media - Simply Stacie

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge