After blogging for over 18 months, I thought since I've been reflecting on how my blog photos have improved. At first, I was using my iPhone 5s which has an alright camera but isn't what I'm looking for. I then moved onto using Andy's Fujifilm bridge camera, and now recently my own Olympus Pen. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was using an iPhone to capture my photos, but not only was I doing that, I was losing quality by emailing myself them. I didn't edit my photos either and without good lighting, my photos were pretty bad.
I began really making the most out of natural light to capture the photos and began to see a vast improvement, especially when using a proper camera. It wasn't exactly what I was after though. I bought a beauty desk from IKEA which was completely white and obviously great for product photos but it didn't give it that oomph. I began using Adobe Photoshop (CS3 because I'm not made of money) to lighten the background, make text clearer and show off how beautiful some products are. To start I usually up the brightness and contrast, then use the curves function and play around until it looks right.
To finish off I use the image filter 'high pass' and overlay that with the soft light function which in short terms sharpens the image and takes it up a notch for photo quality. Aside from that, I only ever crop my photos and always resize my images to 1000 megapixels otherwise they don't load too well. As you can see from the above photos you can see how spending just five minutes editing a photo can completely knock the other out of the park and you're left with stunning photos without spending hundreds on box lights and the latest Canon camera. You can use free photo editing tools such as GIMP, Pixlr and PicMonkey which work just as well. The only thing I would always recommend would be to transfer photos using a memory card, never via email or text etc as you do reduce the quality of the photo.
When you come to think about it, once you've spent the time editing your photos and making them pretty, you improve your blog as a whole but you then have beautiful photos to use on Instagram and Pinterest which is an obvious plus considering that we all stride to have the perfect photo. You may see in some photos I use fake flooring from B&Q as the white background does get a little repetitive. Some bloggers using laminate flooring, marble lino and other backgrounds, it's all down to personal taste. For me, the white is my favourite as you can make your photos look more professional as you can lighten the background as much as you want. Make sure to have a play around with your photo editing and know that there isn't one way to edit photos!
If you're into tips posts, here's some other posts you may be interested in:
The Best Blogging Tips Written By Bloggers
Pinterest Tips For Bloggers
200 Blog Post Ideas
How To Find Blogging Opportunities
How To Promote Your Blog Posts
How To Create A Successful Blog Post
A Basic Guide To Working With Bloggers
How To Start A Blog
