I am currently swamped with a certain Christmas photo book project (delivery date yet to be determined depending on when I actually get it done…), and have been immersed in going through our family’s best and favourite photos from the last year.

{Side note: if you ever feel like chucking your three-year-old out in the snow because he just smushed cheese into the carpet on purpose, looking at his photos from a year ago when he was positively still toddler-baby-ish and oh-so-little is proven to be an excellent antidote to the arghhhh-ness that is *that* moment, and a guaranteed bringer of the warm-fuzzies-melt-your-heart-lovey-dovey-ness. Be forewarned: side effects can include baby fever and eventual reproduction of the three-year-old-parenting-stage all over again.}

Now, I know the basics of how to operate my {beautiful} little Nikon D60. I know how to use the ISO, the aperture, the shutter speed, etc. But sometimes these things take some fiddling to get the perfect shot. And sometimes the lighting conditions are just too much even for my {beautiful} little 35mm 1.8 lens to handle.

{Side note: I am in love with my lens. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It lives on my camera 99% of the time.}

And, uh, confession time… I own Photoshop Elements. Sadly I have not yet really learned how to use it. I wish there was a class or something that I could take, because I am BAD at the whole self-taught thing. I’m an INFP – a dreamer, an idealist, and an artist. NOT self-disciplined in the slightest. But, I digress. I just felt the need to get that off my chest.

So. When I need a quick (like I’m talking less than 2 minutes here) edit on a photo that’s just not fantastic, but has that potential, I use the free online editing in picnik.com. You can probably do the same stuff in other free programs, but I find picnik to be pretty well the easiest and best in its field. Obviously photoshop is in a different stratosphere, but since most people don’t even have photoshop (let alone have it and not know how to use it… oh! the shame!), I thought this little tutorial might be helpful.

~

I’m not a professional photographer, but I find the above photo on the right to be much more pleasing to the eye than the one on the left. I used two simple edits to get that change.

1) Lighten the exposure (under “basic edits”). I lightened it by 39%. It may be a tad overexposed now, but  since I don’t have that professional eye for such technical details, I’m good with it as is. 

2) I used the “boost” tool (under “effects”) by 20%. As far as I can tell it basically just brightens and sharpens. A small change that made a big difference, in my opinion.

3) UPDATE: I just went back and re-edited the same photo for my book, and played around with the highlights and shadows as well. I ended up lowering the percentage of exposure increase to about 29%, and increased the shadows by around 20% as well, and I liked the end result even better. So feel free to play around with your photos, as you continue to learn what looks best!

That’s it!

There are tons of other editing features on there. It’s fun to play around with them and learn, if you dig that sort of thing. I also use the “text” feature to add my watermark to some of my photos that I would prefer not be stolen (not that I think my photos are all that awesome, but it does happen on the internet, and I’d rather avoid it if I can).

Two minutes later and I have a memory preserved that is much more conducive to seeing the lovely faces of my grandmother and daughter, instead of just dark shadows. Can’t go wrong with that!

Do you use picnik.com? Other editing software/programs? Any questions about what I did?

{PS. Any recommendations for online workshops/courses to learn how to use PS/PSE? I need deadlines. And homework. And possibly chocolate at the end.}

Beth

Beth is the creator and editor here at Red & Honey, a lifestyle blog for the naturally-minded homemaker. She recently began a passionate love affair with coffee and her life will never be the same. She has had three babies in less than four years, is a professional laundry-avoider, and loves to stay up way too late making weird stuff from scratch that normal people tend to just buy in a store. Hence, the coffee.

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