After editing (brighter, sharper) ................................... Before editing (dull, not sharp enough)
I am pretty cheap and practical when it comes to a lot of things. For example, I don't own or use Photoshop or Lightroom software, and the only lens that I use to take my food photos costs only $100. I buy all my nice Nike running and work-out outfits (worth around $40 each) at about $2 or $1 each at nearby Goodwill stores. That's the cheap part of me.
The practical part of me knows that I simply don't have time to learn all the wonderful features of Adobe Photoshop, and I am not going to buy that expensive piece of software only to use a fraction of its capabilities to adjust my photos in a very minor way.
The lazy part of me does not want to deal with post-processing at all, I just want to shoot the photo and be done with it. So, the lazy part of me tries to get the shot right so as not to require any subsequent photo editing, and as a result I do not post-process most of my photos. However, there are a few instances here and there, when the light is wrong, or I screwed up the exposure, or the photo did not come out bright enough, and in these cases I found some pretty powerful photo editing software online. There are no downloads required, everything is done online, it's free. Interestingly, one of these resources is by Adobe.
So, here they are, my favorite free online photo editors:
My favorite free online photo editor for making collages:
And, by the way, I think Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom are both great, and eventually I do plan on purchasing them, but in foreseeable future I just don't see myself using either of those two often enough or using their capabilities enough to justify the expense.
I am also planning to write more posts about particular features I use with these free photo editors to edit and enhance the minority of my food photos.
Here I just want to give you a couple of examples of how I used these photo editors:
- The photo at the top of this post is an after/before image adjusted for brightness, saturation, and sharpness, using Pixlr.com.
- These 2 collages (one of them adores my Facebook account) were made with Picmonkey:
My Facebook cover image
Image for one of my posts
Great list - I've found some fantastic additional free photo editors that could be of interest, I've reviewed them all here:
https://www.itpages.com/best-free-photo-editors/
I hope they help!
I've never thought of doing this before! I think I can get my 5 year old to love this idea too!
Great blog, glad I find you!
Thanks for the tips Julia!! Your photography is outstanding and to learn that you take the practical approach to buying equipment, etc... is awesome. I tend splurge on photo equipment--my husband hates that lol.
Talaia, I noticed that WholeYum was pinning my recipes - thank you very much! 🙂 It also prompted me to check out your site and I already bookmarked it "need to check it out more" 🙂 By the way, I just purchased Lightroom - they had a special and I only spent $100 on it! 🙂
It's always nice when something free is also good)) But, I think you should not deny yourself the pleasure of 30 day free trial of Lightroom 😀 I was just like you describe yourself, until I somehow stumbled upon the free trial... I never looked back. I think once you try it you will absolutely fall in love with all the things you can do with it (editing-vise) and see why other's use Lightroom. I was not paid to tell you this, but I know the difference it made for me and the way I felt after that trial... I really think you should try it 🙂 It is really easy to use (i did not take any classes and figured out how to use it within a couple of minutes of downloading), and nothing like the Photoshop... anyway, just thought I'd share 🙂
You can get the free trial by going to the adobe Lighroom website, they offer it all the time...
Hi Julia,
Thanks for stopping by my blog 🙂 I absolutely love yours! Great job!
Thank you for sharing these tips. My kitchen doesn't have natural light so I try to cook and take pix as much as I can on weekend mornings. When I cook at night, I adjust my DSLR for indoor light, but it still doesn't produce the desired effect. Oh, I can't wait to play with these websites!
Thanks a bunch,
Julia
Thanks for visiting! I take many of my photos using a speed light, because majority of my cooking happens in the evening. For instance, the photo at the top (the platter with chicken and 2 wine glasses) was taken in the evening using a speed light. Not the best photo, but not too bad either. Especially after brightening it up with an online photo editor. 🙂