Photo editing allows you to take a great deal of control over your final image. From adjusting lighting or contrast levels to boosting or even altering the colors on display, editing provides the final polish that makes professional pictures stand out.
Just as filters on social media apps allow for quick touch-ups that make your pictures look better, editing software often has simple adjustments that you can apply with just a few clicks. For the best results, however, learning how to manually apply adjustments gives you full control of your final product.
To become adept at taking professional photographs, you need to keep a lot of different things in mind when you bring out your camera. Follow these tips to start improving your skills:
Do you want your photos to look like the ones in magazines? Or on the National Geographic website?
Then these 15 tips on how to take professional pictures are for you. You’ll take better images in no time, whether you’re photographing birds or portraits.
Looking to take your photography to the next level? As an expert, you know that mastering professional pictures takes time and effort. Our Cheat Sheets can help you learn 52 different aspects of photography with just a few minutes of study.
Before you pick up a DSLR, you should have a basic understanding of the various digital file formats. Most DSLRs these days shoot both JPEG and RAW files.
A JPEG has a limited number of brightness levels it can capture as opposed to a RAW file. A JPEG records 256 brightness levels, while a RAW can capture up to 16,384!
Also, each time you edit a JPEG, you lose information. You can completely destroy the quality of a JPEG file by editing it a couple of times.
The beauty of a RAW file is that you can convert it to a JPEG, or another type of file like a PSD (Photoshop) file.
Understanding lighting is the foundation of photography. There is a misconception that abundant light is good and low light is bad.
Some of the loveliest portraits are taken an hour before sunset, during the golden hour. The light casts a warm and flattering glow on the subject.
Too much light, in the form of a very sunny day, can create harsh shadows on your subject. This can be very challenging to work with.
Before you start shooting, take some time to observe the light. What direction is it coming from? This will influence where you place your subject.
When shooting static subjects like food, front light can create unwanted shadows. It can also cause the image to look flat and lifeless. Side or backlighting is usually the better choice.
The simplest form of in-camera light metering is “average metering”. The camera reads light levels across the entire viewfinder. It calculates an exposure based on the overall average of luminance.
But any scene that that doesn’t average out to a standard of 18-percent reflectance will be a problem.
Centre-weighted average metering is a variation on average metering mode. It gives the brightness of the objects in the center of the viewfinder more weight in the exposure calculation than objects around the outer edge of the frame.
This is based on the assumption that the subject of interest is likely to be near the center of the frame. And that it should get exposure preference over objects in the periphery.
Award Winning Commercial PhotographerSpot metering is the opposite of average metering. It samples the brightness of a small screen area. And it allows you to select the exact portion of the scene on which to base your exposure.
It’s very useful for situations where large areas of very light or dark tones would create an exposure bias that would detract from the central subject. This is the case for backlighting, high key, or low key scenes.
The image below is a good example of when you’d want to use spot metering. This is because it has a lot of contrast.
Even the best light meters and exposure systems can be fooled by difficult lighting situations. And the preview screen on the back of your camera is not a very reliable indicator of correct exposure.
To do this, you need to learn the Exposure Triangle; that is, how aperture, shutter speed and ISO work together.
It is also necessary to learn how to read a histogram. Most cameras these days have a built-in histogram function. Using it will be a lot more helpful to you than relying on your LCD screen.
One way to ensure that you got the correct exposure is to shoot the scene at several exposures. Then you can choose the best one.
One way to ensure that you got the correct exposure is to shoot the scene at several exposures. Then you can choose the best one.
If your base exposure isn’t correct, then one of the other images is likely to be properly exposed.
This is why it’s a good idea to buy your camera body and your lenses separately. The kit lens that comes with your camera is usually not the best quality. And it will not always be suitable for the kind of photography you want to do. Especially if you’re aiming to take more professional pictures.
When I shoot food photography, I usually reach for my 24-70mm zoom lens, or my 100mm macro. For portrait work, I prefer an 85mm. If you’re traveling or doing landscape shots, you’d be better off with a wide-angle lens.
Keep in mind that the crop factor of your camera will have a bearing on which lenses you choose.
Entry level DSLR or “prosumer cameras” usually have a cropped sensor. A Canon Rebel is an example of a good DSLR with a cropped sensor.
What this means is that a 50mm lens will behave more like a 80mm lens because of the crop factor.
If you have a camera with a cropped sensor, make sure that any lens you buy will be usable if you decide to upgrade to full frame.
Bright and airy photo of a stone tower on a clear day - how to take professional pictures
Aperture is a regulator that controls the flow of light through the lens. But aperture also affects your depth-of-field.
DOF is essentially how much of the image is in focus. The wider the aperture (smaller f-stop number), the less of a DOF you have. So in the info-graph above, an f-stop of 1.4 means the background will be super blurry. And vice versa for a narrower (i.e. larger f-stop number) aperture.
Shutter Speed (Tv): So aperture controls how much light enters the lens, shutter speed controls how fast that light enters – this is why shutter speed is often known as ‘Time Value’, hence ‘Tv’ printed on your camera dial.
This is what’s happening when the shutter button is pressed, the camera’s mirror lifts up and we can see the first shutter sitting over the lens, that shutter moves, exposing the sensor to however much light is coming into the lens (set by Av), very quickly the second shutter moves across the sensor, stopping any light hitting it.
As you can see from the info-graph, shutter speed (or to be more specific the pause) can be either super quick (1, one-thousandth of a second) or really rather slow (half a second). My camera can actually allow me to make the shutter speed even slower and even faster.
To freeze super quick action, like someone running, without any blur, use a super quick shutter speed like 1/250 or 1/500. To capture something moving fast with blur, for example, a car going fast, use a slower shutter speed like 1/100 or 1/50. When using a slow shutter speed, you’ll want to mount your camera on a tripod.
A side effect is this. Using a fast shutter speed means less light is being allowed to hit the sensor, so you’ll want to compensate this by setting the aperture wider (smaller f-stop number). And when using a slow shutter speed (i.e, the sensor is exposed to light for longer), use a narrower shutter speed (larger f-stop number).
Understanding Av and Tv are the basics of photography. Play about, experiment to find your own style and remember, there are no right or wrong answers.
I took this image of The Water Tower, in Cardiff. In order to freeze the flow of the water that constantly streams down the tower, I used a shutter speed of 1/320. (How did I reach that number? I experimented with a few different speeds until I was happy with the results).
Because Tv controls how fast the light enters the camera, a fast shutter speed lets in less light than a slow shutter speed.
To compensate, I opened the aperture to f3.5 to increase the amount of light (so the image did not appear too dark) but without compromising the ‘freezing’ nature of the Tv.
I captured this image under a walkway at Cardiff Bay. Look at the wooden poles, there is a lack of detail – you cannot see the wood grain, just areas of solid featureless black. I do this often in my live concert images as it adds a certain level of drama. It totally works in travel photography too.
I used Adobe Lightroom (LR) to increase the amount of black and shadows in the image (see below).10 Professional Photography Tips Guaranteed To Make Your Photos Amazing (4)
On the ‘BLACKS’ and ‘SHADOWS’ options, I slid the arrow towards the lowest points and played around with the levels until I was happy with the image.
Find a great spot, frame up and …. wait for someone to walk by. Typically a shutter speed of 1/200 or 1/250 should be fine to stop people walking fast becoming a blur (unless you want that blur?)
Don’t be afraid to use the crop tool to get rid of anything in the frame you don’t like and/or to make the image neater and more powerful. (‘Before image’ above & ‘after image’ below)
If we look at my photo of Roue de Paris below in a two-dimensional sense it looks rather flat. I’ll explain: The image has been framed so everything sits on various horizontal strips.
Along the bottom of the frame are the chairs and a few people dotted about. Above that is the pond, then some more people and trees and then the wheel and sky. In reality, you are actually looking at an area about 50m deep, but my framing makes the area seem reasonably flat. I often create images like this as I find it pretty pleasing.
To do this yourself, look out for patterns in the photos and perhaps even get down on your knees (or lower) to create that perspective.
All cities have a rich history with many stories to find. Understanding those stories and adding your own spin is a great way to create images. I shot this image at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. I spun around and noticed a woman looking like she had just stepped out of war-time Europe; black coat, headscarf – really timeless, a ghost from the past. I quickly raised my camera, filled the frame with those concrete slabs, and pressed the shutter. I managed one single frame before she was gone.
Advertising PhotographerNine times out of ten, your travel photos will be taken using available light (i.e. you won’t be adding any flash) so use The Sun to your advantage.
You don’t always have to put your back to it, turn towards it a little and get some cool lens flare. Real lens flare is infinitely better looking than the fake stuff added in post.
Not really no – only a version of the truth. So with that in mind, get extreme. This statue base already had some graffiti sprayed on it so I went full comic book punk by using the Split Toning feature in Adobe Lightroom (See below).
The split toning feature allows you to add colour/tone individually to the highlight and shadows. For this image, I chose a pinky/red colour for the highlights and a blue-ish colour for the shadows.
Add depth to your frame by shooting through things. You’re showing a narrative and/or an environment with one single image, so do so by having multiple things in your shot but find a creative way to do it. This image is super symmetrical – I levelled it by eye on the day.
I used Split Toning to add some teal to the shadows and some light orange/slight tan to the highlights. I also dropped the blacks giving the image a very subtle cinematic look.
The image above is f3.5 1/125. It was a particularly dull, overcast day in Barcelona when I visited so there wasn’t a super great amount of light to worry about flooding into my camera which could cause overexposure.
The image above is f3.5 1/125. It was a particularly dull, overcast day in Barcelona when I visited so there wasn’t a super great amount of light to worry about flooding into my camera which could cause overexposure.
But if it had been a bright summers day, I definitely would have had to increase the speed of the shutter to above 1/250.
Using Split Toning, I added teal to the shadows and a very subtle orange to the highlights. I also dropped the blacks
There are no right or wrong answers. Experiment. Play around. Have fun and find your own style. You don’t need lots of fancy equipment. Remember: every cool and iconic image taken in the past was created using equipment that is less technically superior than the camera you hold in your hands. It’s imagination and individuality that counts, so have the confidence to create your own images in the way you want to.
Photography can be more than just a passion, it can be a profession! This complete guide on how to become a professional photographer will answer every question you’ve ever had about professional photography and starting a career as a professional photogr
The advent of digital photography has led to an explosion in photography, both as a creative art form and as a career choice as well. The basics of becoming a photographer are incredibly easy now; You can buy a camera and some equipment, learn photography from a multitude of free online photography courses, practice your photography skills, find a niche that you can focus on. You can indeed find your own answers to the question - how to become a professional photographer.
However, though it sounds easy, the truth is not that simple. Photography is an extremely competitive field that requires you to have talent, skills, marketing acumen and discipline to make your mark as a professional photographer. To be successful, professional photographers need to not just be talented; they also need the tenacity to put in long hours, compete hard due to supply-demand imbalance and manage their business as an entrepreneur. Here is an extensive collection of great photography website templates for your reference.
While you can earn much more as a photographer, based on your talent, skills, portfolio, and business acumen, it would be wise to make sure that it's your passion and love for photography that's driving your decision to go down the path of becoming a professional photographer.
Once you have figured out what motivates you and decided on taking up photography as a career, it's time to start looking into the big question of 'how to become a professional photographer.'
In this comprehensive guide, we have covered all the aspects and steps that you would need to take to complete your journey from a hobbyist/amateur photographer to becoming a professional photographer:
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