Photography 101: Editing Softwares

Ariana Zahedi Photography

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Now that you’ve read more about photography equipment and its manual settings from my previous articles, I’ll be introducing one of the most exciting parts of photography: editing your images via professional software!

The use of editing softwares is an incredible way to help your vision come to life. From mind, to camera, to production, it is amazing how this process allows you to exhibit your imagination.

We will be looking at some applications, both mobile and desktop, to get you started.

Adobe Lightroom (Desktop & Mobile)

Price: $14.99 - $50.00/month

The image above is a screenshot of my Lightroom workspace. In addition to seeing your Before/After products, tabs on the right pane expand into specific editing functionalities.

These functionalities include:

•     Basic lighting adjustments (exposure, shadows, highlights, temperature)

•     Tone curve (a more professional version of the basic lighting tab)

•     Individual color adjustments (reds, oranges, greens, blues, etc.)

•     Detailing (sharpening, smoothing)

•     Lens corrections (setting frame corrections based on your lens specs) And much, much more!

You can also create your own presets, shown on the left pane of Lightroom - if you like how you edited an image and want to save that recipe for later use, you can create a preset and name it to however you choose. The intricacy on this app does wonders and there are tons of tutorials online, shoutout to Youtube!

And if you’re on the go or don’t have your laptop, Adobe has made a clutch move where they decided to create their own mobile app! This comes in handy if I receive images from a film lab and want to start working right away if I don’t have my laptop on hand.

Adobe has understood that majority of the camera community cannot spend thousands of dollars to use their full package, so they have introduced a monthly subscription that you can apply for online!

If you’re a student in an accredited university, you can have FULL access to Adobe Creative Cloud for only $20.00/month! This also includes Photoshop, Graphic Designing, Video, Illustration, 3D & AR, UI & UX! It is truly a steal if you want to learn more than just photo editing.

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VSCO (Mobile only)

Price: Free

One of the first photo editing softwares before I pursued professional photography was on the mobile app, VSCO!

While it is not as in depth as Adobe, VSCO has created some of the best photo presets for you to apply to your photos while making slight adjustments. In the beginning of their mobile application, VSCO only had presets to give - now, they have taken a new route by adding in preset applications for videos and more editing tabs similar to Lightroom. You can also create your own profile in VSCO with your images and share with the rest of the VSCO community, similar to Instagram.

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RNI Films (Mobile Only)

Price: Free

Like VSCO, another mobile application that I have become fond with is RNI Films. This software app carries presets that resemble the look of film, with dusty tones and push/pull similarities that actual film used to produce. They also have effects to add in, such as film grain and dust particles that give images more of a deeper, cooler look.

If you want to learn more about new terms, separate lenses, accessories, aesthetics, and more, be sure to follow Mind Body Soul Sisterz blog update! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly at arianazahediphotography@gmail.com :)

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