10 Common Photo Editing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
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Raw images need some sort of editing to look perfect, regardless of the quality of the camera, lens, lighting setup, or skill of the photographer. However, editing is challenging as there is a thin line between the editing techniques that can make or break the appeal of an image.
Let’s learn about some common photo editing mistakes and ways to avoid making them during post-production.
What is Photo Editing?
Photo editing is the process of making adjustments to images to fix issues with brightness, sharpness, noise, shadows, color intensity, and other factors. In addition to these, photo editing includes cropping images, changing backgrounds, removing distracting objects, and more.
Photo editing has become a necessity, whether it’s for eCommerce, the fashion industry, nature photography, architectural photography, astrophotography, or even just personal use on social media.
It has the ability to tenfold an image’s beauty while also having the ability to ruin it completely. Therefore, if you want high-quality edited images, you can hire a photo editing service provider.
10 Common Photo Editing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Sometimes errors made during post-production ruin the photographs rather than improve their aesthetic appeal. Here are the 10 most common photo editing mistakes you should be aware of so you can avoid making them.
1. Improper cropping
One of the most critical photo editing mistakes is either overcropping or improper cropping. Cropping images involves not only resizing the image but also improving its appearance by removing the unnecessary portion of the frame. However, due to overcropping, the valuable visual data from images get removed, and improper cropping compromises the visual appeal of the images.
How can you avoid them?
– Crop according to the aspect ratio of the platform you will be using your image
– Maintaining composition rules such as the rule of thirds, golden ratio, central framing, leading lines, etc.
– Keep enough negative space around your subject to make cropping easy
2. Colours vary in print than on screen
The difference in the brightness, contrast, or color of the images on the screen and the printed version is another photo editing error. It usually occurs if the monitor on which editing is done is not calibrated correctly. The same image that appears vibrant and bright on screen may appear dark when printed, or vice versa.
How can you avoid them?
– Calibrate your monitor before editing with the device’s built-in calibration tool
– Gain deep knowledge of colour theory
3. Smoothening the skin too much (plastic appearance)
The texture of human skin is a natural feature. However, when removing blemishes or other imperfections from the skin, photo editors often overdo it by over-smoothening the skin. This results in losing fine details from the images, such as pores, natural lines, freckles, etc. That textureless, extra-smooth skin gives the impression of being unnatural or plastic, similar to that of a Barbie doll.
How can you avoid them?
– Keep the original by the side while editing
– Use the healing brush tool to retouch makeup like contour, blush, etc.
– Don’t smooth out natural features, such as smile lines under the eyes or beside the lips
4. Sloppy background edit
Another photo editing mistake is a poor background edit. Background removal is essential, especially when it comes to fashion photography or e-commerce products on your artist website. Although removing the background is easier with a green screen, the level of complexity increases when the subject needs a precise selection to separate hair, folds of clothing, etc., from the background.
How can you avoid them?
– Shoot keeping your desired background in mind
– Make sure that the subject’s light and shadow always match the background
– Blend the edges of the subject with the background to smooth out harsh lines
5. Oversharpening
Over-sharpening is the most common photo editing mistake. Sharpening is used to improve the contrast of an image and fix blurring issues. However, going overboard has a number of negative effects, including highlighting the subject’s features excessively, boosting noise, producing artifacts, halos, and more.
How can you avoid them?
– Use a high pass filter, or,
– Sharpen as per your desire, but reduce the level by 10% at the end
Note: Websites, especially social media sites, compress images, which eventually makes images look sharper. So, keep the sharpness as low as possible to prevent them from appearing overly sharp after the upload.
6. False contrast
Contrast maintains the balance of light and shadow in the images to give them definitions. But, due to improper contrast editing, images appear dull when the contrast is low and details are lost when the contrast is high. So, the image will appear flat whichever way the contrast is set—lower or higher.
How can you avoid them?
– Learn and use the curves and levels of photo editing programs
– Adjust contrast in the selective places rather than the whole image
7. Over saturation
Saturation controls the intensity of the color in an image. A well-saturated image looks vibrant and attractive. However, when over-saturated, the color gets boosted way too much, resulting in skin that looks orange, losing details, and making images look artificial.
How can you avoid them?
– Create layers to saturate individual colors
– Adjust vibrance instead of saturation
– Compare edited images with the original after taking a short break from the screen
8. Having too much noise in your photos
Although noise is sometimes a good thing, too much noise can ruin the aesthetic of an image. Both during the shooting and editing processes, noise can appear in photographs. Especially while increasing the image’s exposure or adjusting the shadows, the image’s graininess increases.
How can you avoid them?
– Keep editing minimal
– Avoid creating over-exposure, over-saturation, and oversharpening
– Limit the number of elements you include, such as filters and overlays
9. Editing on the original (RAW) file
The biggest photo editing mistake is editing the original image file. Editing the RAW file alters the original visual data from the image. As a result, if the editing is unsatisfactory, there is no way of going back and editing from scratch.
How can you avoid them?
– Edit on a duplicate file
– Create layers to make changes
– Keep a backup of the original files
10. Correct use of monochrome features
Monochrome gives a classic vibe to the images. However, it’s important to consider the contrast and context of the images when monotonizing them. For instance, a sunset image looks good when it’s colourful. Also, using selective colours in monochrome was once a common editing technique, but it is now a big no.
How can you avoid them?
– Image with enough contrast offers subtle dramatic features, so you can turn them into black and white
– Don’t use sepia tones, as they make images appear muddy
– Either keep the image colourful or black and white; don’t use selective colour
Tips to Improve Your Photo Editing Skills
The following tips for professional photo editors can help you improve your photo editing techniques.
Choose the Best Software
Working with a complicated editor could be time-consuming and frustrating due to the need to learn the program, so choose software with an intuitive user interface and a short learning curve, such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, GIMP, etc. Besides, starting with the free versions can help you familiarize yourself with the program and grasp the basics.
Use Online Tutorials
Online tutorials are a great source of resources to level up your photo editing skills. On YouTube and Skillshare you can find numerous free and paid tutorials covering every aspect of photo editing. Watch them and practice to hone your skills.
Use Online Forums
If you have any queries regarding photo editing or want to know more about photo editing, join different online forums. There, you can get direction from professional photographers and photo editors.
FAQs
What are the effects of photo editing?
Photo editing has both positive and negative effects. Professional editing, for instance, can make images appear appealing, improve brand value, build customer trust, and positively affect sales. However, poor editing can make the images look unnatural, degrade the impression of a business, and decrease sales.
What is the importance of photo editing in a business?
Photo editing has a direct connection with business, as customers learn about a business and the products it offers through product images. Professionally edited images convey a sense of top-notch quality. But if the product images are poorly edited, people will doubt the product’s quality. So, photo editing directly affects the sales of a business.
Why is photo editing considered bad?
Photo editing is not considered bad until the images are appropriately edited. The purpose of image editing is to enhance the beauty of a photograph. But if the editing alters the main message of the photograph or conveys a wrong message, then that can be considered bad practice.
What are ethics in image editing?
Although there are no restrictions when editing images, a photo editor must consider certain ethical requirements. Among them, preserving the integrity of the image’s content is the top priority. That means it’s highly expected that the image won’t be manipulated to such an extent that its content or context is completely altered.
Final Verdict
Mastering photo editing is a lengthy process. You can hone your photo editing skills with a little bit of time, effort, and practice. Make sure to avoid the above mentioned photo editing mistakes to polish your skills and shine like a bright star in the field of photo editing.
WHAT PHOTO EDITING MISTAKES DID YOU USE TO MAKE AND HOW DID YOU FIX THEM? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
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