Tips to Troubleshoot Common Problems With Picture Editing

Picture editing is an essential part of any digital project, from creating a professional-looking portfolio to making fun vacation cards. Even when you just want to upload a picture to social media, a few photo editing skills always come in handy.

Pictures with photobombing elements in the background disturb the overall aesthetics of the image. This problem, however, can easily be solved using a free online picture background remover such as Vista Create.

Picture editing software – illustrative photo. Image credit: Jye B via Unsplash, free license

If you’re a beginner or even a pro and want to avoid common mistakes during editing, you’ve come to the right place. A few common photo editing mistakes are setting the contrast too high, having too much noise, not cropping the picture correctly, making the picture too smooth, and not removing obstacles in the picture background. To find out about ways to fix some mistakes while editing pictures, keep reading the article.

Set the right amount of contrast

Contrast is the difference between the lighter and the darker regions of your image. When you are setting the contrast, you are either increasing or decreasing the darkness and lightness of your picture. Meaning that you are making the darker region darker and the lighter regions lighter.

A picture that does not have the right amount of contrast looks unappealing. This means that it can either be too striking or flat. This is why you must look out for the details of the image rather than trying to make a big change.

For example, instead of using the sliders to change the contrast, use a more detailed method such as making the changes on adjustment layers rather than the original layer. This will help give you a much more defined look and will help avoid big irreversible changes to the image.

Images can be too noisy

An example of a noisy photo. Image credit: Lisa Fotios via Pexels, free license

The noise in images refers to the grainy effect that is evident in several images if they are not edited properly. This noise is mainly if you have added many layers, filters, and elements to the photo. It could also be because the photo is not HD, as images of low quality have a greater chance of having much noise in them.

Therefore, it is advised to use HD images and to keep the photo simple by not adding many filters and elements to it. One way to reduce noise in an image background is to make it transparent. You can make a JPEG background transparent using editing apps.

Overcropping

It is one of the biggest mistakes that an editor can make. It is mostly made because the editor solely focuses on the main object of the picture, causing them to cut the background of the image a bit too much, which eventually makes their picture look claustrophobic.

Another reason why editors end up overcropping is that every photographer has a certain photo composition in their mind. Therefore, to achieve that, they end up with poor frame choices, making their picture blurry. To escape this, they end up doing a lot of improvising, causing them to eventually overcrop the photo.

The best way to avoid overcropping is to use the different rules of composition, such as the basic rule of thumb, golden ratio, rule of third, and much more. For example, you can divide your picture into nine equal parts and place your main object at the very center. This way, there would be enough equal spacing surrounding the main object causing it to appear much more retained.

Smoothening the picture too much

Every photographer wants their subject to appear beautiful. This is why many of them may go overboard and turn their subject from a real-life object, which may be a human, to a plastic barbie doll. They do this by smoothening the photo much more than is required.

This type of photo editing may even come across as offensive to many people as it gives off very unrealistic expectations to the general public. However, it’s not completely wrong to remove blemishes and spots off your subject to give them a much cleaner look. This is why beauty filters exist in the first place.

However, while editing, keep in mind not to smoothen out the picture too much. They can ensure this by keeping the original photo on one side and the edited one on the other. This will help the editor navigate as to how much they should increase the degree of smoothness for the picture.