So, you are looking for ways to enhance the look of your blog photos. Fortunately, you’ve hit the right place. In this post, we will discuss how to edit photos and make them perfect for blog posts. But before that, we must first understand how to pick the best photos.
Scenario 1 – If you have to pick from stock photos
In this case, you need to consider the nature of the post you want images for. Let’s say the post is about wedding planners. Here you need to use bright photos that depict the wedding fervor in the right spirit. But when you have to pick photos for a web development blog, the main concern should be informative shots.
Scenario 2 – When you’ve shot the photos
When you’ve got your photos shot from a photographer, you need to transfer them all to a computer for selecting the best shots. Import all the photos to Adobe Lightroom and juxtapose them to each other. It makes the comparison easy and lets you choose the most appealing shots.
And the editing part begins…
Step 1 – Cropping
If there’s some unwanted part that has managed to enter the frame, crop it so that the image is left only with the pertinent view.
Step 2 – Straightening
Align the important part of the photo properly with the help of the Straighten Tool.
Step 3 – Curve Adjustment
Use the Curves Tool for adjusting the histogram of the image. The upper right and lower left parts of the graph represent highlights and shadows respectively.
Step 4 – Exposure Adjustment
Use the Exposure Tool to adjust the light. You can increase or decrease it as per your choice.
Step 5 – Sharpening
The Sharpen Tool in image editing applications is to manipulate the outlines of the photos and enhance clarity.
Step 6 – Add Vibrance
If required, you can make the colors in the photos look more vibrant.
Step 7 – Brightness Adjustment
Adjust the brightness in the photos to the level where they look their best.
Step 8 – White Balancing
Select a point that should be the whitest or darkest part in the photo. You can adjust the white balance of the entire photo according to that.
Step 9 – Contrast Adjustment
Adjust the contrast in the photos to accentuate the different tones present therein.
Step 10 – Color Balancing
Make use of the Color Balance tool to adjust the intensities of various colors.
Step 11 – Saturation
Colors play a vital role in defining the overall impression of photos. That’s why there are many tools to be used in image editing services that aim at improving color composition. The saturation Adjustment Tool is also one of them.
Step 12 – Shadow and Highlight Adjustment
Photos having excessive shadows and highlights need to be treated with this tool. Use it to fix shadows and highlight for appropriate composition.
Making photos web-ready
The standard editing part is complete but when you have to use the photo on a blog, making it ready for the web should also be your concern. Here, you have to take care of 3 things.
1) Resize the photos
Cameras, especially professionals ones, produce photos with very high resolutions and as the results, the file sizes of photos go very large. Photos to be used online must be having small file sizes so that they load quickly. The suggested width for blog photos is 1000 pixels.
2) Changing Color Profile
The color profile of photos shot by cameras is RGB while sRGB is the best one for the web. Converting from RGB to sRGB is very simple. Use the “Save for Web” option in Adobe Photoshop and it’s done.
3) Renaming Photos
Names of the photos strongly impact the search process of all major search engines. You should give meaningful and pertinent names to your blog photos so that users can find the photos and the blogs easily through search engines.
