Easy Enhancements for Digital Photos

Light Meter by Lisa K. Berton

There are plenty of reasons as to why photographers do post-production work on digital images. For instance, a shadow may have been so dark that detail was lost or someone’s arm crept into the frame and needed to be cropped out. Simple adjustments like these were made in the darkroom by dodging the print or moving the enlarger head. Nowadays, folks make changes with computer programs. Personally, I miss working in a darkroom and embalming myself with fixer. Anyway…let’s take a gander at my examples for you of easy enhancements to do at home.

You’ll need a photograph and a photo editing program. I used Adobe Photoshop CS3.

No cropping. No editing other than adding my copyright. This is the original image. Please hold your applause until the end of the blog.

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By adjusting specific colors (yellow, blue, red, magenta, and cyan), I make the bricks or make believe bricks stand out more. The colors pop.

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Next, I adjusted highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. Doing so creates contrast and dimension.

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One more tweak with the colors puts yellow over the edge, the blue and cyan start looking fake, and the red and magenta are screaming for attention. Remember to keep pictures realistic-looking, unless your goal is to hurt eyeballs or re-create freaky movies from the 60’s and 70’s.

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Now you may clap.

No Canada pavilion bridge was harmed in the making of these magical pictures.

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One Reply to “Easy Enhancements for Digital Photos”

  1. Interesting! Your “over the top” photo reminds me off postcards I paid good money for back in the 80s!

    Lisa responds: Were they neon, too?