I am always extremely flattered when someone asks me photography advice. As a self taught photographer, I am always learning. I have invested a lot of time and effort to improve my photography skills and I’m passionate about sharing what I have learned with you!

As I have mentioned before, 3 things must exist in balanced qi for a good picture: aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Must Know Editing Tips

Today I’ll share how you can enhance your images with minimal photo editing. Something that I have learned quickly is that photo editing is only as good as a great picture offers.

It is not a magic tool where it can transform a crappy picture into a perfect VSCO Instagram pic.

But say you need to bump up lighting a bit or want a richer color, there are a few things you can fix.

How do I make my dark gloomy pictures brighter? 

Well again, the picture has to be somewhat exposed correctly. A super dark picture simply can’t magically turn into a light bright gem.

This picture I took at the Moon Cabin in Joshua Tree. Obviously its a dark corner. I use Adobe Light Room. They have a monthly subscription for a very reasonable rate. You can  get a photography subscription or upgrade to have access to Illustrator, InDesign and more. I tend to use Light Room and Photoshop on occasion.

Making a picture brighter with Light Room

Back to editing, what I did was look at the right side bar. Find exposure and bring up the bar to a reasonable exposure without blowing it out.

Better right? Here is the rub, if I want to make the bottom half of the picture lighter, it is going to completely blow out the top half.

Ok Anita, I see that. What do I do?  Well, next you want to play with shadows, highlight, perhaps bring down the whites, increase the blacks. Try the contrast, vibrance etc etc.

See where I am going? You intuitively will know what you want out of this picture within the context of what is already there.

So as I experimented with my options. This is what I came up with that still offered a balanced exposure.

Noticeably different right? I am digging this picture now!!

I hope this really helps you step your photography game! As always, feel free to message me if you have any other questions!

Happy day!