HOW I EDIT MY PHOTOS + VIDEO TUTORIAL

Hi my sweet lovely love bugs! Today is the day most of you have been waiting for! I am ECSTATIC because I finally get to share how I edit my photos with you! This has been the most requested blog post since I started blogging. I know some bloggers have mixed feelings on this subject, many of them do not want to share their secrets. But NOT THIS GIRL! I want to help you guys make your photos look fabulous and IG ready.

Just as a disclaimer, I am in no way a professional, I still have a lot to learn and improve on. I’ve had my blog for a little over a year and a half and just recently discovered my personal aesthetic. So today I want to share with you how I edit my photos with presets that I bought (@AlexaJeanBrown presets). I will be transitioning to my own presets this Fall and plan to do another post on this down the road.

Lets begin with the basics. I shoot 90% of my content with my 3100 Nikkon DSLR Camera. Having QUALITY photos is extremely to me. It makes a huge difference to brands when they’re looking to collaborate with someone who produces high quality content. Plus, you look more like a professional. I shoot all my photos in RAW format and I highly recommend shooting in RAW if you have a camera that allows you to so. It carries much more data, which allows for more in-depth editing.

After a photo shoot I run home (yes literally I race back to my house because editing is my most favorite thing ever) and upload the images to my computer.

As of right now I am not using my desktop to edit my photos. Crazy- I know. But editing them on my phone is so much simpler for my fast paced life. I’m always editing on-the-go!

After browsing through all my photos and selecting the best of the best, I then Airdrop them to my phone (I have a MAC computer).

Now it’s time to start EDITING! Below are the main app’s I use during my process. They’re all FREE to download!

Lightroom App

Lightroom may not be an app for beginners, but there are so many tutorials out there to help you learn the ropes. I used it during my college studies so I already had a basic understanding on how the controls work. Most professional photographers use Lightroom, and if you take you’re content seriously, I would consider switching to Lightroom. You can purchase it on your computer or use the phone app for FREE– hence, why I do my photos on my phone!

ColorStory App

ColorStory is another popular editing app. Some will use it to edit their photos, but I use it to lay out my content and prepare it for the up coming week. I like to make my feed as aesthetically pleasing as possible. In the ColorStory app – much like Vsco- you have the ability to move around your photos so you can pre-plan content!

Snapseed App

The Snapseed app is an extremely user friendly editing app developed by Google that I also use from time to time. I used to use it for my editing until I switched to Lightroom. I mostly use this app now to help sharpen images/blur them or make make minor adjustments. Only available on Apple phones.

If you are looking to buy presets check out Creative Market or Etsy, and search for MOBILE presets that are compatible with the free Lightroom app. There are a ton to choose from so take your time selecting them and always- ALWAYS- read the descriptions.

Now that we’ve covered the basics take a look at my editing video below where I go in depth about my Lightroom & Preset editing process! As always if you have any questions drop them in the comments so I can share!

(note: if you are playing this on your phone and the audio is not working, click on the icon at the bottom right corner of your screen and select the 2nd audio option)

After I choose my preset, the main things I’ll adjust in Lightroom are:

Exposure/Contrast
Highlights/Shadows
Whites/Blacks
Vibrance & Saturation (Individual Colors in the Mix tool)
Luminance
Retouch/Spot Removal

I like to bring up the white’s in my photo, bring up the shadows so I don’t have to many hard blacks, and desaturate my yellow almost all the way and increase the luminescence. This takes away almost ALL the yellow lighting in my image, which I will add back in later with the selection tool.

Most times my photos are a little too white or faded, so I use the selection tool to bring color BACK INTO the photo. I showed some girls this at the last blogger event I hosted and they were blown away! It can be very tedious work but I really does make the picture crisp, clean, and colorful, giving it the ability to tie in to my current aesthetic.

One thing that I loooove about Lightroom is you can copy all your adjustments from one photo and paste them to the next image in your camera roll. That way consistency and (efficiency) is at an ultimate high. I like doing this with photos from the same photoshoot that used the same lighting to get the most cohesive look.

Sometimes I will use the ColorStory App to add in some texture to my photo or for light leaks. I mostly use it just to lay out my feed, but these add on’s can really make a photo fun and funky! View the video above to see which light and texture filters I used for this photo.

BEFORE

AFTER

Of course, every photo is different, so I don’t always edit the photo as much as I did with this one! However, I hope you enjoyed this little post and following along on my editing tutorial. If you have any questions please feel free to connect with me or drop a me a question in the comments!

xoxo,

Amanda