Photo Editing Tips for Beginners

I have no aspirations to be a photographer, a social media icon, nor a marketing guru. I simply like photography.

I grew up in the world of social media, and it has become as much a part of my everyday life as scrapbooking must have been thirty something years ago. I’ve been walking around with a camera phone in my back pocket since I was thirteen years old and, to this day, I won't leave my house without it.

I’m still young, so I won't pretend to have the wisdom that comes with an experienced life, but I will tell you one of the truest things I have ever heard.

One day, when you are old and grey, you will find yourself alone with nothing but your memories.

Sad right? Well it doesn’t have to be. You just need to surround yourself with happy memories. How do you hold on to these memories? You need to take a photo of them.

Since learning this lesson, I have photographed and videotaped any and all happy moments in my life. As life went on, it became a bit of a hobby. I grew interested in photography, started to follow professionals, and I learned a bit of editing. Emphasize on ‘a bit’.

There is nothing like the disappointment of taking a photo and something unwanted making its way into the shot. Below is a photo of my car.

I liked the angel of the shot but, I did not like the streetlamp showing on top of the hood. Well, have no fear! Snapseed is here.

Snapseed is one of my favorite apps for quick edits like this. You just upload the photo, hit healing, and tap what you want removed. This works best when the background is uncomplicated.

I just zoomed into the item I wanted removed, drew over it with the tool, and voilà, a seamless blend.

You know the famous quote,

" If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.”

Well I’m a really big fan of my car.

This is one of my favorite photos I’ve taken of my baby.

Want to see the unedited version?

I used Snapseed for the majority of this editing. The app is supper easy and even makes recommendations for you. I mostly just changed the exposure, contrast and brightness level. Of course, I blurred and darkened out all of the background too.

This next photo I took while in quarantine, as well as a blizzard. I was bored, and wanted to do something artsy, so decided to do a ‘moody’ portrait featuring a large window in my house.

After taking this photo, I uploaded it to Adobe Lightroom and hit auto. I know, I'm a photo-editing genius. I did adjust the contrast, expose, blacks and whites, but only a nudge here and there. I also uploaded it to Snapseed to change the perspective, so that it looked like it was taken from a lower angle. That’s it.

This one is a bit more complicated. One day, I got it stuck in my head that I had to take a photo of my high-low jacket looking like a cap. I was inspired by Snape and just had to do it.

For the life of me, I could not get a good photo of my face, arms and cap all at once.

So I decided to make, what I call a 'franken-photo'. You know like Frankenstein? I’m so good with the jokes. Ha-ha.

I took the photo that I liked of my ‘cap’ and used the ‘double exposure’ tool on Snapseed to overlay a photo that had a better arm position.

After positioning them directly over on another, I drew over which part I wanted visible from the second photo.

But, oh my goodness look at my face. Why did my face look like that? So to fix that, I scrolled through the other photos I had and found the one I liked the most. Using the same process as before, I drew on a new face for myself.

That was the day the 'franken-photo' was born!

Once again, I am not a photographer, nor do I want to be. I just want my Instagram, camera reel, and Snapchat to tell the story that is my life.

I simply believe in the saying, “A photo is worth a thousand words.”