I wanted to share another Photoshop editing tutorial with you this week. I've been doing a lot of project photo editing lately with the mixed media tutorials and for design teams and my weekly pocket scrapbook pages, so I thought I'd share some easy photography editing tips with you today.

ADJUSTMENT MENU

This is what the menu looks like that I will be referring to in this tutorial. I will be focusing on the top row of buttons.

ADJUST LEVELS

• Click on "Levels" button (picture of a histogram)

• Slide white triangle to the left until it is at the very edge of your histogram

(If the color is off, click on the gray eyedropper and click it on something that is a neutral gray or white in your photo)

• right-click in your layers palette and choose "flatten image".

ADJUST CURVES

• Click on the "Curves" button (picture of a grid with a "s" shaped curve going across it diagonally)

• I choose the easy way out, and click on the drop down menu and choose one of the presets.

• Normally I choose "linear contrast" or "medium contrast" for my pocket scrapbook pages, and "increase contrast" or "high contrast" for some of my other projects. Try them all and choose the one you like best.

• right-click in your layers palette and choose "flatten image".

ADJUST BRIGHTNESS

• Click on the "brightness/contrast" button (picture of a sun that's half black, half white)

• Slide the triangle under "brightness" to the right to increase the brightness. Be careful not to blow out your highlights. Use your best judgement to decide when to stop.

• right-click in your layers palette and choose "flatten image".

SHARPEN FOR WEB

This last step is optional... but I usually use it for sharpening photos when saving for web. I don't do it for normal photos I'm just going to print out, just for when I'm saving it for the web.

• FILTER > SHARPEN > SMART SHARPEN

• A box will show up and these are the settings I use.

I hope this helps you in giving your photos a nice clean edit. I like doing it this way, rather than using actions because the adjustments are so dependent on so many different variables... like the weather, time of day, etc. I wanted to show you an easy way to edit on your own. Do you have a special way of editing your photos?

I am using a photo of a card I made for the June new releases at Sweet Stamp Shop, Koala Family, isn't it adorable?

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