Whether you are beginning as a professional photographer or simply taking photography as a hobby, the basics need to be learned or you won’t get anywhere. The following photography and photo editing instructions by a pro photo retouching service, are just for you to get started.

Use a Tripod Stand for Photography

Everybody’s hands can shake when handling a camera. Shaky or blurred images are every photographer’s nightmare. Therefore, use a tripod stand either for your camera or mobile and achieve distinctly clear photographs.

Camera Settings

ISO, shutter speed and aperture need to be correctly tuned to achieve great results.

ISO (sensitivity to light)

Normal values range from “200” to “1600”. Any higher noise will greatly disturb the picture’s aesthetics, though noise can be prevented even at “6400” nowadays, courtesy of the evolutionary modern equipment.

• High ISO makes the camera sensor more sensitive, thereby, making it suitable to be used for dim lighting to produce bright images.
• Low ISO means less sensitivity to light, making it suitable for bright surroundings to produce well-lit photos without an over-exposure.

Shutter Speed

Besides its ability to control the exposure of light, it can also introduce the effect of mobility and conversely, capture moving objects without blurriness. Smaller values include “1/1000” to “1/200”, while bigger ones are above 1 second.

Exposure of light

• Longer shutter speed – captures less light – suitable in bright environment to prevent over-exposure.
• Smaller shutter speed – captures more light – suitable in dark surroundings to prevent under-exposure.

Motion Blur

• Long shutter speed – moving objects appear blur – ideal for exhibiting mobility of a fan, wheels of a car or bike or the flow a waterfall and river.
• Small (fast) shutter speed – it freezes motion – great for shooting water droplets or birds in flight without a blurred visual.

Aperture

Aperture – the hole that lets in light – manipulates a photo’s time of capture and focus. Generally, small values range from a normal “f/2.8” to an extreme “f/1.2”; large figures pertain to a normal “f/16” to an extreme “f/64”.

Exposure

A large, medium and small aperture can effectively maneuver the time of the day the image was captured

• Large aperture – more light will pass – produces a bright photograph.
• Small aperture – will pass less light – a dark photograph will result.

Depth of Field

The sharpness and focus of an image can be controlled.

• Large aperture – shallow depth of field – background is out of focus; the subject can be framed through the blurring of foreground and background – ideal for portrait photography.
• Small aperture – high depth of field – both foreground and background are sharp – ideal for landscape photography.

The Resolution

Resolution takes care of the amount of detail a picture can hold. In simple terms, resolution ensures that two extremely close lines appear as two separate lines and not as one stroke. Resolution is measured in PPI (pixels per inch), i.e. the number of pixels per inch in an image.

• High resolution – used typically when the picture is required for printing and exhibiting details, e.g. landscape or architectural photography. Cropping and resizing for printing may be done later, which is essentially lessening of the area of an image and thereby the loss of pixels, so high pixels (high resolution) are necessary to retain the details that would be lost during cropping and printing.
• Low resolution – implemented when particular details need not be displayed, e.g. wedding, sports or street photography.

It is advisable to shoot at high resolutions and reduce it later in post-processing if result is not up to mark. After all, details cannot be recovered if their pixels not present at all.

Manual and Auto Focus for Photography

Both manual and auto focus have their own pros and cons and it is recommended to be familiar with both of them.

Manual Focus

Allowing you to manually adjust the focal point of your photographs, it works wonders when dealing with dim surroundings, shooting through a field of flowers or through a window where more than one layer of scenes are present, capturing fast moving objects and macro photography in which the subject is placed extremely close to the lens.

Auto Focus

Auto focus depends mainly on contrast to capture a scene. It, therefore, provides great results in well-lit environments, such as wedding and portrait photography, product photos and real estate photography. Auto focus, in these situations, is way more accurate than manual focus and promises clear, crisp photos.

Enhance Colors

If you enter the right camera settings, the resulting photographs should be free of color issues such as under-exposure or over-exposure. Though if these problems arise, they can be effortlessly tackled in post-processing. Or you can, instead, play with the multiple color sliders to create a different visual.

• Shadows and Highlights

“Shadows” are the darkest part of the image whereas, “Highlights” refer to the lightest section of the photo. Moving their sliders left or right restores or hides their respective details.

• Contrast and Brightness

Increasing “Contrast” accentuates the difference between the light and dark parts of the image, while decreasing it mellows down the glaring contrast created. Lowering “Contrast” also creates an impression of a faded photo, insinuating that the picture was taken a long time ago. “Brightness”, on the other hand, tones down the extremities of “Contrast”.

Saturation and Vibrance

“Saturation” brightens the overall colors of an image, creating a pleasant invigorating visual, while “Vibrance” focuses only on the underexposed parts, making it a great tool for rectifying skin tone.

• It’s easy and simple you can do it yourself or if you need more perfection you can alway try photo retouching service to do it for you..

Resizing and Resampling an Image Photography

In Photoshop, go to “Image” menu – “Image Size”. When the “Resample” option is ticked, you are resampling (altering the size of a digital image), and when it is unchecked, that is resizing (used by graphic designers and printing purposes).

Resampling

It is altering the dimensions of the image by adding or subtracting pixels from the width and height. Down-sampling is making a photo smaller, while up-sampling means making a photograph bigger.

• In the “Image Size” dialogue box, make sure “Resampling” is checked and the units of width and height are “Pixels”.
• Write your desired width or height and the other will be automatically set by Photoshop.
• Down-sampling is easy as there is only a subtraction of the available pixels, while up-sampling degrades an image because more pixels are added. So avoid having to do up-sizing by having a higher resolution in the camera.

Resizing

Photoshop will redistribute the existing pixels to alter the physical size or resolution of the image. Up-sampling should be avoided so instead change the resolution of the image.

• In the “Image Size” dialogue box, deselect “Resampling”.
• Change the units of the dimensions to “Inches”.
• 72ppi is the standard screen size, while 300ppi is the typical print size. Therefore, change the “Resolution” from “72” to “300” (or vice versa, according to your requirement), and the other dimensions will automatically change.

An Emblem

What better way for a professional photographer to leave their mark than their own personal emblem defining their work. It can be anything – a particular editing pattern, a design in the photo or a signature word in the photograph. You are find out more photo retouching video tips here

These guidelines will surely get you promising results. So what are you waiting for? Pick up your camera and begin your compelling journey!