Want to know a secret? Lean in close. When it comes to photography, I’m so not a pro and therefore — I kinda cheat a little.
I’ve been behind an SLR camera for about 18 years now and much to my husband’s dismay (and probably my high school photography teacher if she knew what I was up to these days) … I really don’t know how to use all of the capabilities my camera has. Clearly I love to take pictures. But I’ve never made the time to really, truly focus on understanding all there is to know. Major kudos to all of you who have learned the technical side of photography.
As for me, digital editing is everything to my pictures. Sure, it takes some skill and experience to take decent pictures. I have a little skill and I have a little experience. But the shots I take almost always need to be touched up. Most photographer will tell you the same thing. They don’t share pictures with their clients that don’t go through some sort of editing.
Have a look at some before & after images:
That is the lock on the front door of the largest wooden church in the world, built in 1847 (Kerimaki, Finland).
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Gymnastics lessons. Go, Claire, go!
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Bedtime snuggles & wrestling — resulting in yesterday’s POTD.
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Flowers in front of the Helsinki, Finland temple where my parents are currently serving a mission.
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So what’s my method? Well … I used to edit all of my pictures in Adobe Photoshop. Still love Photoshop. Still use Photoshop – mostly for adding text and creating invitations & announcements and other projects. But since I’ve been organizing all of our digital pictures in iPhoto for years, I have finally converted to using iPhoto’s simple editing for the majority of my quick edits. Including every POTD for our family’s Project Life book as well as every picture I post here on my blog.
Because I know that many of you are Mac users (and every Mac has iPhoto built into the computer), I thought I’d share my go-to edits that I find myself using with just about every picture I use. If you’ve never edited in iPhoto, today is the day. Seriously — give it a try!
When you double-click on an image in iPhoto, you’ll see this at the bottom:
Click on Edit and you’ll see this:
At this point, you have all these options. Play around. I always click on Effects and Adjust. These are the 2 things that will pop up, shown now at the right side of my image:
No two photos will be edited exactly the same. So I’m not going to recommend to “bring this slider up this much” and “bring that slider down that much” or “click on Boost Color this many times”. Again, you just need to play around.
For this particular photo, I brought up the Exposure quite a bit, a little on the Sharpness, and a tiny bit on the De-Noise. You can see how far I took my sliders. I ended up not doing anything with the Effects options on this particular photo, but I love that iPhoto shows you in thumbnails what your picture would look like with any of those options. Plus, they’re variable. You can go pretty intense … not that I ever really go very intense.
These are the main features I use for quick edits:
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Going digital with our cameras years ago was huge. Remember that? Digital editing is just as huge, if you ask me. A quick edit on any picture can make a big difference. You’ll love your pictures that much more. If you haven’t dabbled in this, give it some time.
Remember: Different strokes for different folks. I’m simply sharing with you what I use and what I do. Everyone has a different system that works for them. I realize these specifics aren’t 100% applicable to PC users, but your photo-editing software likely has similar features & functions.
Also worth noting: I’m not tech support. You will probably have far better luck getting your questions answered by the real experts. Check out Apple’s iPhoto Support site or google your questions. It’s amazing how much information that’s out there.
Tags: digital photography, Mac, photo editing
Thank you so much for sharing. I am a Mac user and while I have used the edit features some you opened my eyes to more possibilities.
I’m pretty new to iPhoto (2 months to be exact) and I’m a little leery about switching over from Photoshop to organize my photos. I have a particular way that I name my files, and I like to backup my photos to DVDs and external hard drives. How do you organize and backup your photos in iPhoto? I need some convincing and organizational tips. Thanks! BTW, I love the new look and logo.
Thanks a million! I so want to make my pics look better than before, but don’t have time to sit down and learn photoshop. I have iphoto, but haven’t played around with the editing features much, so thanks for sharing! I appreciate it!
Becky…you are my new BFF. Thank you for sharing your tips with iphoto! Greatly appreciated!
I’ve been a MAC user since WAY before it was cool, and I’ve ALWAYS loved iPhoto. I was BLOWN away 11 mths ago when I bought my new MAC and they had made iPhoto “that much better” I don’t have Photoshop, and I don’t have Lightroom (though I have played with it, and probably will get it!
) But haven’t felt I’m missing out on much with my photography because iPhoto’s capabilities are JUST.THAT.GOOD!!! 
Thanks for showing the World what I’ve known for years!! LOL
PS…do you still shoot in RAW?
Your photos are always gorgeous. Thanks for sharing this. I always blush when people tell me one of my photos is gorgeous…almost like I have a little secret. I learned film photography in school decades ago, but never had the money to buy the equipment that editing would have entailed back then. Now, we have everything available to make professional quality photos when ever we want, with just a camera, a computer and some editing software. I have Photoshop Elements but rely more on Google’s free Picasa program…quick and easily. Then I zip them off to an online photo printer like Snapfish or Shutterfly, as needed. It’s great!
i have a mac and i’m wondering how you get ‘text’ on your pics???
any ideas?
This looks quite a bit like Adobe Lightroom’s features. I’ve recently become addicted to Lightroom, because you can batch edit, and adjust all of these kinds of things quickly. So much better than one by one in Photoshop (or Paint Shop Pro–which is what I use for the other stuff).
I love the Picasa program you can download for free because it’s so easy to use too!
Just wanted to share a tip with anyone out there (esp. if you don’t have a Mac, like me) – Google has a great photo editing/organizing program called Picasa. It’s a free download, is super easy to use, and has many of the same features that Becky mentions above. You can lighten and brighten, saturate, switch to B&W or sepia, straighten, crop, add text, etc, etc, etc. One of the best features is that you can creat collages of photos – which is great for if you want to print smaller sizes of photos for scrapbooking. Just thought I’d throw it out there!
Hi, I found your site through U-Create. You had a photo display posted on her site, but when I click on the link she has to get the instructions on your site, it doesn’t pull up. I would really love to see how you made it! Can I still find it on your blog somewhere??
Awesome Becky! Thanks so much for pointing this out. I have noticed those buttons down there, but never played with them. What a quick and easy fix instead of opening Photoshop.
brenda
I’ve had iPhoto for years but never played with the edit feature. Thank you for showing me how easy it is!
THANK YOU!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I always felt like I was cheating when I would use my computer to “fix” my photos! It is such a blessing to know that someone that I truly admire their work does the same thing!!!!!
Thanks for the smile,
Jackie
This is awesome…thanks for sharing. I am a Mac user, love iPhoto; but had not realized the photo editing capablities. Love it!!!!
I love iPhoto! I’ve been dreaming of photoshop for years, but I’m honestly so happy with what my iPhoto can do, just like you’re saying!
Quick question . . .you probably cringe when people say that! [sorry]
So, speaking of iPhoto. . .I”m trying to figure out the best way to organize my iPhoto.
For now, I’ve just organized each month into an “event”. July 2010, August 2010 etc. I’ve never used the “album” feature and things like that.
Just curious what your favorite method is. . . but that’s a whole other post for a whole other day I’m sure!
Oh my!
LOVE my Mac & iPhoto! If you click on the enhance button it self-edits your photo instantly. Not always perfect, but have found it to work pretty well w/just 1 click!
I am so happy you wrote this post!! I will be printing this & referring to it often. I just edited a few pictures following your recommendations & they look so much better than I had originally edited them. (exposure had the most to do with it)
thanks Becky!!
wow, the before and afters are so amazing.
I have been using IPhoto for about a year now, since I’ve been blogging. I just bought Photoshop 5, and am trying to wade through figuring it out. It is quite complicated! IPhoto is a great starting place, and I also still use it. I would also recommend Picnik, which is also a free online photo editor like Picasa, but with Picnik you can round the corners of pics, which I love to do. Also you can use it to put text on your photo’s.
Thanks so much for sharing this with all of us! I have loved using IPhoto’s editing, and am hoping I will soon be proficient at PS 5!
Becky – Thanks for this! Can you take us a step further in iPhoto? I would LOVE to know how you organize photos in iPhoto. Teach us your structure for keywords and albums–how you organize your photos. Do you use name key words (like David, Porter, etc.) or generics (like kids, family, etc.) or places (like school, Mom’s house), or events (like vacation, weddings, etc.)? I’ve been trying to come up with some schema, maybe with a little bit of LOM thrown in, but haven’t finalized my ideas yet. I’m sure you’ve got an awesome way to do it…
Thanks for sharing!
Carol
I’ve been editing with iPhoto for almost two years now and I’m really satisfied with it. Most of the time I just need to boost the color but sometimes I need to play around with some of the sliders. I also love all the ways that photos can be organized in iPhoto too. I still use Photoshop Elements for certain projects and I also have an app on my iPad (Photogene) that I like a lot but iPhoto meets most of my editing needs.
I love your blog, I found new things everyday. I like how you display your kids’ drawings. Do you have a post about this?
Awesome!!! So happy to hear this….. ps. The lime green background on your site is GREAT!!!!
Thanks Becky! I’ve used iPhoto for years, but used to always edit in Photoshop, which was cumbersome enough that I often didn’t bother. This year I switched my default editing back to iPhoto and started playing around, and I agree my photos look so much better now! This is so much less intimidating than figuring out how to use actions in PSE!
Thank you so much for being honest about what you do! I have been learning how to use my SLR for about 6 months and often feel frustrated that the lighting isn’t better or the exposure is too light/dark… you get the idea but I was delighted to read this post and see your process. Simply appreciated… thank you!
I love the note about you not being tech support. Thanks for the chuckle.
from a fellow mac lover.
I too am wondering if you are still shooting in RAW…only RAW or RAW+jpeg? Could you please add a quick note? (From the pictures, I’m guessing you are…as I know that they tend to be ‘grayer’…but FULL of info!;-)
Love the ‘new’ blog look…and all the great inspiration!
J
Thanks so much! I have PE8 but feel overwhelmed every time I open it. I always wondered if my Mac had photo editing abilities (why would I even question it, right?!) and now I’ll have to try it when I get home.
God bless you!!! I could never find those features when I wanted to either!! It is still tricky, but I’ll have more confidence to play now. Thanks! ~Lori
My husband just purchased a MAC. I’m definitely a bit “green” with envy because I desperately want one now that I’ve worked with it for a bit….many features are superior to my PC. But the photo editing program does such an outstanding job with so little effort. I am now downloading all of our pics to his laptop first, editing, THEN transferring to my computer for storage etc.
Wow! Finally someone who can share practical iPhoto advice! Thank you so much!
thanks for your sweet mention via twitter! if you were closer, i’d give you a little tour around lightroom, it’s so great for editing multiple photos at once via ‘sync’…and for girls like us who love prettiness + efficiency, it’s the bees knees
xoxo, -melanie-
thanks so much Becky for these great tips. We bought a MAC last fall and I have struggled with figuring things out as I am not techno at all. My hubby is a computer guy but for his work he works on a PC at his work place computer programming and the last thing he has time for at the end of the day is experimenting on another computer. I appreciate these photo editing tips so very much. It amazes me how you took those pics of the menus that pop up and added words and circles on them and then posted them to your blog……how does one do that????
Also, my other question is, how do I take scrapbook pages that I have made in a scrapbook digital program and put them into IPhoto for uploading to facebook, blog etc or for printing? I realize that maybe some of the specifics will be well specific to each person’s program but if you know of some simple universal steps it would be so very much appreciated. It is so wonderful to find someone who talks in laymens terms.
thanks so much,
Marcia Froese
P.S We bought a cannon rebel xs, and love it! It came with an 18 – 55 mm lens in the kit, and later we bought a used 75 – 300 mm lens from a photographer for 50 bucks (Cdn). We kept our old Olympus point n’ shoot for just in my purse. WE LOVE OUR CANNON!!!! Thanks again.
Makes me want to invest in a Mac even more. One of these days!
I love your post. Macs rule. I have been using iPhoto editing for years and find it does most of the things I need. When I was a PC user I edited my photos in Picasa which did a fairly good job on many things.
Becky you have been an inspiration to me for many years and I love everything you do. Your simplicity of design and beauty of arrangement as well as your organized manner are just perfect for me. Thanks.
I just got my first Imac and I am so excited about Iphoto and have dabbled a bit. Hopefully I will learn some from you as I go. Lots to learn and so far I love it. Really a great computer but do have some new “learning” to do. Thanks for all of your inspiration. Love the new website
If you are using iPhoto as your editing tool, how do you add your watermark to all your pictures? I would love to know this little trick of the trade. Thank you for sharing some of your other tricks. I tried a couple on some pics I just added to Facebook.
this is so helpful thank you. i love iphoto, but hadn’t dabbled in their editing stuff