Now that we’ve talked how to light and use color in your photos, the final step before you upload those photos to your Ravelry project is to edit them a little bit. Editing is a quick and simple step and can give your photos a little extra pop.
There are a bazillion photo editing apps out there, but my personal favorite is Adobe Lightroom. This is the phone-friendly version of Adobe's powerful photo editing software. The basic app is totally free, and you can upgrade to their pro version for some more advanced features.
When I go to edit a photo, there are three main things that I’m looking at: composition, lighting, and color.
Composition
Using the crop tool, you can fine tune your composition. It's great for straightening lines, cutting out distracting elements in the background, and zeroing in on your focal point by adjusting what parts of the photo you’re going to keep, and what parts can be cut out.
Here's a photo I took of myself on my phone. It's in a hallway at my house, and I wanted to crop out the window and junk on the floor on the far left. So, using the crop tool, I just tightened my shot.
Lighting
Though I am sure after you read my blog post on finding the right light for your knitting photos, you’ve taken extra care in this area, sometimes the lighting in a photo will still need a little adjustment. Use the exposure tool to make your photo lighter or darker as needed. You can also use the contrast tool to make your darks a little darker and your lights a little lighter, which will make your photo pop more.
Here, I bumped up both the exposure and contrast a bit. Not a huge difference, but enough to make the photo seem a little more airy.
Color
Sometimes when you take a photo, the colors do not look true to life. This all has to do with the color of the light being cast when your photo is taken. For example, a cloudy day might yield a generally blue overtone in your photo. Use the temperature tool to slide between more yellow or more blue as needed. If the colors are more blue in your photo, slide it a little bit towards the yellow side, and vice versa.
I will sometimes also use the saturation tool, and bump up my saturation just a bit in order to make my colors pop.
Here, I made the photo slightly warmer (yellow tones) and bumped the saturation the tiniest of bits.
Here's our final Before and After!
Again, not a huge change. Just some subtle adjustments to make the photo stand out!