A Daisy Garden

I’ve shared before
a little on photo editing and how simple it is.
You can actually give photos what I call,
a “Photo Makeover”.
(We all need one once in a while, right?)

Right now there are some programs and Aps that you can upload
to your phone, ipad, kindle, computer, or whatever device you own.
(If you don’t own one, this would be a good excuse to
run out and get one).

Don’t run.  Walk.
(Sorry, this popped right from my
childhood, and all those times I was running down the hall
and was stopped by a school administrator.)

…Back to makeovers.  Ahem.

I just wanted to share some before & after photos
so you get an idea (if you’re new to photo editing)
how easy and fun it can be.

Here’s a before photo of my brother and my sister-in-law.

And here’s the after:

The “before” photo is not bad, but I wanted to bring the focus
into the center, and give an overall warmth to the picture.

Here’s another example, this time my son and daughter-in-law:

AFTER:

It’s just a little different look, but I like how it brings out their faces
and I also added a frame.  My daughter-in-law loves the country
and the old, vintage-y look, so I thought she’d like this.

Before:
I took this one of my daughter a week before her wedding:

I cropped the photo, changed it to B&W
and made the background dark
in order to frame the Bride.

It all sounds complicated, but it’s really simple.

Before:
This one was several years ago when all I had
was a little pocket camera.

My son playing his guitar.
All I did was select the “swap color” option on my little
pocket camera, and highlighted only the guitar.
Everything remained B&W except for the original
color of the guitar.

Before:
A nice sunset shot,
on the lake

After:

I cropped, adjusted the intensity of the color, and framed it.

Before:
I told them to just act natural.

After:

Just added a cute frame to go
with the fun photo
and added just a little warmth to the color.

Before:
Senior (Graduation, not 55+) photo shoot.
You can see more of this here.

After:

I added a dark background and a warmer color tint
in order to bring out the subject
and her beautiful smile.

Before:
The photo is not great, too dark and subject is
almost in the background, you might say.
I might say.
We all might say.

Sorry.
Back to editing marvelous-ness.

After:

I changed it to B&W, but left the
stained glass window untouched.
I also made the exposure level a little higher
to brighten the picture.
This is one of my favorites.

Before:
It was a cloudy day, I knew I’d have tons
of editing to do for these wedding photos
to turn out nicely.
Or marvelous-ly?

The colors are too neutral,
nothing spectacular about this photo…

but…

I love the AFTER:

What a difference!
Now the girls are “front and center”.
All I did was crop, brighten the color,
add a frame, and a little fading
around the corners.
It’s amazing what happens when we crop,
zooming in on something special like this.

These are just a sample of what a little editing can do.
Here are some easy tips to keep in mind:
*Crop
*Brighten color
*Add a dark frame to bring out subjects
*Crop
*Try B&W
*Highlight one thing, while keeping the rest B&W
*Crop
*Zoom in (another word for cropping)
*Add a fun frame (just for fun)

The easiest thing to do is to zoom in (crop).
It does away with all the other things your eye
would normally be drawn to.
It’s another way of saying, “Hey! Look at this, here!”

Experiment!  Enjoy!  Try something new!
You can always hit the “undo” button.
(If only we could do this in real life
and not just in pictures! ha!)

Have fun editing,

Daisy

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