#Techietuesday Photoshop tips for bloggers. (Lighting)

Hello, So this is going to be a post on photoshop tips for bloggers and beginners, I will mainly focus on lighting and image editing tips, keep reading if you're interested in this 

xxx

I get a few messages now and then about my images, mainly what camera do I use?(Nikon d3200) What editing software (Photoshop or after light) etc and I'm always up to answer them but I feel like I'm a bit aloof with my response and with that in mind I've decided to take the time to start an in-depth series on my "skills" per say. These will most likely be monthly and surrounded on different topics around the catergory of image editing.

I will start off with lighting as I feel this is the basic foundation for any good image.  For us non professionals sunlight is a girl bestie so with a little help from Photoshop, your images can go from 0-100. (As the youth like to say)

So lets start...

Whenever I start editing an image the first lighting element I use is called Curves, it is found under :

(image >adjustments> curves. This is how it should look when you've opened up photoshop and started to select curves)

Curves:
Curves is basically a tool that helps change the brightness and darkness of your image, i prefer this tool to brightness and contrast as contrast tends to leave my images looking a bit dusty and grey. In addition Curves gives you more option of which level of colour RGB that you editing the lighting on this is a nifty tool if you are more into editing images of scenery etc as opposed to fashion images.

Curves on photoshop consist of a box to which there is a line ascending. (Pictured above) In order to control light and dark element of an image you simply lift the centre of the line right for lighter and left for darker, although I wouldn't advise using the centre to control darkness, instead of using the centre to control darkness use the bottom left of the line and drag to the right. This tool can be a bit tricky to play around with it so see what works for you.

Make sure to constantly click the preview button found on the bottom right in order to see what effect this tool is taking on your image.

Once you've perfected Curves you'll most likely have to now work on saturation as this tool tends to leave your images a tad on the orange side. The saturation tool simply controls the vibrancy of an image and it is something you should become familiar with if you want to add a theme to your images, e.g. some blogger like to have a colour theme of low saturated images on their instagram feed so all their images look similar.

E.g. Head over to my instagram to see my theme and the themes of the babes I follow.

Saturation
Found under Image> Adjustments> Hue/Saturation.

Saturation is just a tool to control the warmth of an image.

Slide the google under saturation to the right to add more warmth to an image or to the left to make it more grey and cold. In addition you can use the hue tool to change the colouring more. Say you want all your images to have a blue tint to them simple slide the toggle under tool to the right a little bit and choose the perfect blue for you and there you have it!

Once again make sure you toggle on and off the preview button you settings will only change once you click OK, the preview will allow you to see the changes you make and to ensure you really like them before you accept the.

That is a basic guide to image editing on photoshop if you need anymore help, send me an email or follow my Tumblr and drop me an ask http://thinklikekandie.tumblr.com

xoxoxo