Photography Software for Bloggers
Have you considered photography software for your food photography? As mentioned in my previous article I use a combination of iPhone 5 with filters and a Canon SLR for my food photography.
The SLR demands I use an SD card to store my photos, which I can then take out of the camera and plug into a computer for photo editing. Some cameras come with the brand's own photo editing software. But I don't use this.
Two recommended software programs are Adobe Lightroom and Aperture from Apple. Professional photographers use both of these programs and may argue as to which is the better.
Adobe Lightroom is my photography software of choice. I enjoy using it because it's fairly simple to use and intuitive and gives a great result. And it's affordable (I paid, this is not a sponsored post), much cheaper than Photoshop. Just download it from the Adobe Lightroom site (you can get discount if a student).
Here are some tips for editing on Adobe Lightroom -
1. Plug your SD card into your computer.
2. Access Adobe Lightroom on your computer (having downloaded it).
3. Select photos to be imported from your SD card and import to Adobe Lightroom into Library.
Tip - purchase an external drive with large storage capacity for your photos. Photos take up so much computer capacity and if you're taking photos regularly you can use up storage quickly.
4. Go to Develop and edit your photos.
5. A basic edit can make a huge difference to your photos.
6. Many photos of food in restaurants are too dark and can be given a lift by increasing the Exposure setting. For me this makes a huge difference.
Tip - Natural light is the most desirable form of light. Follow the (natural) light. Avoid a dark restaurant if you can visit the same restaurant during the day where there is more natural light. Also avoid the use of a flash in restaurants - it can be intrusive for diners as well as providing a poor result. Flash photography only looks good when used by professionals with serious equipment.
7. Also use the Contrast setting where an increase can provide more definition.
8. Try not to overuse the Clarity feature - it can help but overuse makes the photo look unnatural.
9. You can enhance the colour with for example, Vibrance - but a tip would be to not stray too far from natural tones.
10. If you establish a look that you like, you can then preset that setting and apply it to your whole batch of photos, for example.
11. There are many more features of Adobe Lightroom and I advise you to check out their website if you haven't done so.
12. Export the photos to a folder, then use them on your website!
Says the Adobe Lightroom website, "From first look to final image, Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 5 makes everything about digital photography easier, faster, and more amazing. Perfect your shots with powerful new adjustment tools like the Advanced Healing Brush. Efficiently organize all your photos and share them almost anywhere. And now that Lightroom is also available in Adobe Creative Cloud™, making good shots great is only the beginning."