We all love posts with perfect pictures but it can be a real challenge to take ones if you don't have proper light or a professional skills or camera. Even if you’ve taken a good photo, chances are it can be improved or it needs to be adjusted to work in a collection.
I prefer to use daylight for my artwork but sometimes it's a hard task too. At the evening you can use light tent for product photography or you can make one by yourself too, there are many tutorials in the internet. But the mean problem how to correct your images is still on.
At the end you'll see that it's not necessary to become a professional photographer to make good shots. The only thing you need is a right editing program.
I'm going to show you how to do basic image corrections in Photoshop in some simple steps. I use the full version but there is a light one too. It's easy to use and you don't have to install it just start it.
Images for above pictures before and after editing.
Step 1.
Start the program and open the chosen image from file menu . I'm going to use this card because of it's vibrant coloring.
Step 2.
Go on the Adjustments panel and create a New Levels Adjustments layer by clicking the level icon.
Then on the screen will see a Level histogram.
The Levels Adjustments use to correct the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting brightness, contrast and tonal range. The only thing you have to do is to specify the location of shadow, highlights and mid-tones in a histogram. It'll help you better to represent tones.
Use Adjustment Layers whenever possible, because they can be changed later if you don't like the result for example.
The Levels tool can move and stretch brightness levels in a histogram using three main components: a black point, white point and mid-tone slider.
Moving the right slider brings in the light, the left gives a little more contrast but most important is the middle one because it controls the most of the vibrant colors in the image.
Step 3.
Let's use my favorite image adjustment tool- Curves for the final touch.
Let's use my favorite image adjustment tool- Curves for the final touch.
Go on the Adjustments panel again and create a New Curves Adjustments layer by clicking the curves icon.
At the beginning the curves box opens as a straight line because you haven’t made any changes yet. That means that the brightness values before and after are the same. You will effect a change by changing the shape of the curve.
The points from left (bottom) to right (top) affect: blacks, shadows, midtones, highlights, and whites. By altering the position in these regions will affect the corresponding tonal range of your image. Leaving the line in the center will leave the tones unchanged.
Note that you can’t increase contrast in one region without decreasing it in another. The curves tool redistributes contrast.
Step 4.
And at the end have to crop the image with the proper size to create focus on the right detail. Use crop tool from Tools Palette on the left. Click on the tool icon to select that tool and then select an area of an image and discard everything outside this area.
Skin: FS2,FS6,FS9,HB1,CR2,CR5
Hair: CR5,CR6,CR9,DR3,BG2
Hat: GB1-3,GB5,GB8,BT2-5,CR5,CR9,DR3,OR2,OR3
Clothes: BT2-5,CR5,CR6,CR9,DR3,GB8,OR2,OR3,CG2,CG4,DG3,Blender
Ballons: BT2-5,BT9,BG2,GB1-3,GB8,OR2,OR3,CR5,CR6,CR9,CR11,CG2,CG3,CG4,DG3
Floor: BG1,BG2,Blender
Now see the huge difference between unedited shot and the final one ready to be posted! :)
