8 Quick Photo Editing Tips for Beginners

Today I'm talking editing tips, and these apply to Lightroom but also other editing tools such as Capture One too. They're principles for editing really rather than specific tool advice.

---

---

MUSIC:

---

[PathinAZ]

I think an important element in editing your own photos, is self awareness. When you first look at your photo, pay attention to where your own eye goes/follows. What feeling do you get and is it the same you want to portray. Is the subject clear or confusing/ not sure what the main interest is.
The biggest thing that helped me, as James pointed out, is coming back to it. Many times if necessary, and even the next day.
Anyway, that's my thoughts.
Great video..

[TexMex]

I always crop last, and save a version with no crop. The reason why is there may be more than one ideal crop. For Facebook and some application aspect ratio can be fairly random. But if printing, a 4x5 ratio may be ideal. If sending to a stop photo site, I will crop more loosely as the buyer will have his own crop needs.

[elmachomen]

Great video as always James! I'd like to see a typical beginning to end photo edit from you (maybe with a few different examples to account for diverse scenarios that you'd likely encounter doing landscape or travel photography). I'd really like to see that :)

[paultidsy]

Great tips for simplifying the process, thanks James. Also that's a really nice pony!

[Sketchupification]

Just got into photography again and I really enjoy your videos. Lots of great tips there. You got yourself a subscriber.

[lizzrobinson]

Been editing for a couple years now, actually really useful to hear the basics again, so much of the basic adjustments I can do without even really thinking about them and its good to be reminded to think about them a bit more than I do!

[Franc-obng]

THANK YOU! Your thinking different always inspires me!!!

[colbybundy]

Love the mid-week video, James. Tip 7 is my favorite.

[Blood_Doc]

Fabulous video. Very helpful and, as always, humerous!

[joycady]

Love it when you do LR editing tips! In fact, the first photo that you viewed was the one that I purchased and received the other day. Thank you!

[Joe_Edits]

Great video! great to always learn things from your videos

[JoshBearheart]

Love to see this kind of video, talking about methods rather than telling people what they should be doing. I personally have the lens correction as the first step in my flow simply because I am unorganized and might use a different lens on one image or another so I just make that the first step in my process so I can't forget it and then start at the top with WB and work my way down. I might jump around a little bit to make minor adjustments to the shadows or whites after making color adjustments, but overall, it makes things easier for me and I usually don't forget anything.

[pavel]

Thanks for the advice. Especially the one about eye over histogram and the one, that a bad foto can't be improved or "fixed" in edit.
That's stuff you usually know in theory, however, sometimes a little reminder is very helpful!

[kevinhumphries]

Really enjoyed this video James thank you.

[tTLM]

Excellent tips… really helpful! Simple but powerful, thank you.

[UnPetitPique]

Wow, that was terrific. I really mean that. Overview is what I needed instead of burying myself in the details (sliders). That tip about not wasting time on a bad image is gold. Also about walking away and coming back. Thanks :)

[gord_tomlin]

Thanks James, good set of tips. I'll throw one more in for the list, even before cropping. If you need to do any straightening or perspective correction, you want your crop to be based on the corrected image.

[marios]

thank you great video, love the music inbetween, simply makes me smile :)

[JFW]

Very useful reminder James. Thank you.

[King-Bird-TV]

This video really helped me. I am a photo editing novice and your advice is absolutely on the money. Thank you!
Paul