Top 5 Essential Photo Editing Steps and How To Use Them

Photo editing is as intimidating as it is necessary. Even under ideal circumstances, there can still be an ultra-thin line between perfection and everything but. However, if you start simple, you’ll undoubtedly notice significant improvements. Here are a few easy but essential photo editing steps that you can apply to any photo.

So, you’ve done some research, explored your camera, and taken some photos. Arguably, one of the most exciting moments is importing them into your photo editing software to see how they look. You wait patiently for the import to complete, carefully examine your images, and make your five-star selections. Move over to Develop and… oh my; that’s a lot of slider bars.

Never fear. Editing options are like camera functions; they are designed to do virtually anything, but does that mean you need it to do everything? Not likely, 95% of the time.

Let’s discuss the top 5 essential photo editing steps, why they’re so important, and how to use them effectively.

Raw vs jpeg

One point to understand before tackling the essential photo editing steps is the format in which you shoot. I’ve touched on this before, but your camera has a function (surprise, surprise) to select the file type you shoot in. You should have this option set to RAW if you want to take full advantage of these photo editing steps.

Now, let’s get into the most essential photo editing steps to follow for every photo.

Crop/straighten

Cropping and straightening your image is a pretty obvious step, but it is necessary and often forgotten. A poor composition, a distracting element, or an uneven horizon line can be fixed by cropping and ensuring your image is level.

There are a few ways to do this in Lightroom:

• Crop / Straighten tool
• Auto-Transform
• Manual Transform

For an initial edit, I will attempt the Auto Transform tool to straighten and observe the adjustments it makes. This tool does not crop, but it can adjust more than just the image’s levelling, so try it out but pay close attention to what it’s doing.

Otherwise, manually straightening your image using either the straighten tool or the manual adjust tools is always an option.

Finally, crop your image as desired. This gives you an opportunity to crop out unwanted distracting elements, or ensure your composition is as effective as possible. Notice that there are a few popular aspect ratio selections provided.

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White balance

The white balance is probably the most critical setting to get right in your images. An incorrect white balance will throw off all of the colour hues in your photo. You’ve probably seen this at some point. A blue sky looks purple, the green grass looks blue, a body of water looks green. If you look at an area of an image that you would expect to be pure white and it has an unusual undertone, that’s a good indicator that the white balance may be off.

Achieving the correct white balance can be tricky to nail.

First off, white balance is something you can set on your camera. If you shoot in Auto White Balance, you will get varying results for each photo when you go to edit as the camera has adjusted its settings for each frame. For this reason, I don’t recommend it.

I prefer to set the most appropriate white balance for any given shoot based on the conditions. That way, all the images from that shoot will be the same, and I can correctly adjust them as a group rather than individually.

With that in mind, there are a couple of tools available to adjust the white balance in post-production:

• White balance selector tool
• Auto white balance
• White balance presets
• Manual white balance adjustment sliders

The white balance selector is excellent if you have a point in your photo that you’re sure is neutral in colour and undertone. Unfortunately, I rarely find this to be the case in the great outdoors where I primarily shoot.

In that case, there are neutral grey cards you can purchase to place somewhere in your frame to take a preliminary shot. Subsequently, you remove the grey card, take your photos, and you’re left with the first shot in post-production to use the white balance selector on that grey card and apply the settings to your remaining images. Effective but a slight nuisance in the field.

Additionally, auto white balance and white balance presets can be accurate, but it might require some fine-tuning. Like the auto adjustments mentioned above, give the auto white balance options a shot but be aware of their effects.

I use a combination.

First, I will try the white balance selector on an area as close to neutral as possible and adjust from there. If that’s not possible, I will attempt the auto white balance and presets to see how they look and adjust from there. If all else fails, I’ll manually adjust the sliders as accurately as possible.

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Exposure

Primarily determined on your camera while shooting, exposure is the next step to fine-tune.

Exposure is the most critical part of photography in that it is what makes up your image. Unfortunately, real-life lighting conditions are not always kind. Setting the correct exposure can sometimes be near impossible without relying on more complex post-processing.

However, this is a more in-depth topic that I won’t be getting into in this post. For now, I will operate under the assumption the exposure is reasonably balanced and not too harsh in contrast.

To adjust the exposure, I look to the histogram. Ideally, you want most of the information in your image spread across the histogram, peaking in the middle like a mountain. Adjust your exposure hopefully no more than a half a stop in either direction to achieve something close to this. Then, the remaining tuning will take place in the next step.

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Contrast

Contrast is what I feel makes an image pop. However, every image is different, and while some photos need contrast added, others are perfectly fine as they are (I am rarely tempted to decrease contrast).

Additionally, there are several methods for adjusting contrast, each differing in effect slightly:

• Contrast slider
• Highlights/Shadows sliders
• Whites/Blacks sliders
• Tone curve

I recommend starting with the tone curve. You have a lot of control over how your image’s lights and darks behave with the tone curve. For beginners, I recommend adopting a soft “S” shaped curve to start, as pictured.

A subtle “S” curve is universally flattering on most images, and additional fine-tuning can take place with the other adjustments.

If your aesthetic draws you toward harsher contrast, feel free to deepen this “S” curve for a more dramatic effect.

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Next, I will turn, once again, to my histogram. If, after adding that “S” curve, I still see most of the information condensed somewhere in the histogram, I will increase the contrast slider. Notice how the histogram spreads out but with minimal clipping.

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I would leave some extra room to adjust the Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks sliders; I use these controls to tweak each photo individually.

A quick tip is to refer to your histogram regularly. Without getting into a full explanation on how to read a histogram (I’ll save that for another post), a large mountain is a ballpark goal. If there is a lot of information leaning to one side or the other, play with the sliders until you see it even out. Notice what that does to the image. It’s a little give and take until you strike the right balance.

Vibrancy/Saturation

I have one word to say about this step: caution!

Just kidding, there is so much more to say.

Truthfully, though, that is among the most common, cringe-worthy mistakes I see in beginner photographers’ editing: over-saturated colours.

I did briefly cover this in my post about analyzing photos to improve your photography. Check that out for a few more mistakes to avoid.

When shooting in RAW, colours can render more muted and dull than they might have appeared in reality. In that case, by all means, increase the vibrancy and saturation, but be careful not to overdo it.

I’ve adopted a practice to adjust it to where I’m satisfied and then reign it in slightly. I seldom edit in one sitting either, so when I revisit the photo the following day, I’ll redo my adjustments and see if I feel the same way.

Ultimately, I’ve rarely increased the vibrancy or saturation over 20.

Honourable mentions

Noise reduction/Grain

Depending on your aesthetic preferences, this might be a critical step for you.

If your camera has a smaller sensor, is not particularly outstanding in low light conditions, or you’ve had to resort to a high ISO, you might find noise reduction helpful. It is, as the name implies, a tool to reduce the noise in your image.

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Once again, be careful not to overdo it. Noise reduction is powerful, but it can have a hard time distinguishing between unwanted noise and small details in your image.

Contrastingly, if you like the vintage, grainy look, you might enjoy using the graining tool. You have options to adjust the size of the grain and how rough or uniform it is. Play around and have some fun with it.

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To note, noise and grain do not always have the same effect. As a result, if you’re starting with a noisy image, you may still want to use noise reduction before going in with the graining tool. The product could vary greatly.

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Sharpening

Full disclosure, I’m not particularly eager to apply sharpening to my images; I prefer to ensure I get a sharp enough image with my camera. That being said, if you’re sharing photos on social media or posting them to a website or online sharing platform, sharpening can make them look much nicer on screens.

I would be careful not to overdo this one as well. Zoom in on your image 100% to see the effect that it’s having as you make the adjustments.

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I also recommend, as shown in the example above, applying noise reduction to images that call for it before using the sharpening tool. Otherwise, the sharpening tool will sharpen your noise making it more obvious too.

Finally, keep in mind that sharpening for screens or print is a feature used during export. If you’re going to use both, take extra precautions not to go overboard when editing.

Summary

A beginners editing process:

1. Crop and Straighten
2. Correct White Balance
3. Adjust Exposure
4. Balance Contrast
5. Improve Vibrancy and Saturation

Bonus steps:

• Noise Reduction or Grain
• Sharpening

Conclusion

Editing can be daunting. Capturing the photo is my favourite part, but editing is a personal second.

If you shoot in RAW, post-processing is necessary. However, when you’re starting, less is more. Though it can still take time, it’s the subtle changes that make all the difference, and it’s all too easy to cross that thin line into the over-processed territory.

Follow these steps and take it slow.

Unusually difficult conditions or specific desired results can require more intricate editing work, so stay tuned for a post on more advanced editing techniques.

Until then, let’s give it a shot!