I've noticed a lot of photo editing threads online, and my friends ask me to edit their photos for them often. I adore editing photos because it's so satisfying seeing the before and after, but honestly the basic process is so easy that anyone can do it with pretty much any editing app.
The thing about camera lenses is that even if they capture a horizontal display resolution of 4000 pixels, the photo taking process can't capture vibrant colour the way the human eye can and inevitably renders photos unbalanced. The histogram below shows an unedited photo (the one I use as an example in this post, actually) that demonstrates this - all of the light and colour data is pushing up against the left hand side of the graph.
At the risk of oversimplifying, if the data is pushed to the left, it indicates that the pixels are compressed to the point that colour and light are not being accurately represented. If it were pushed to the right, it would indicate an over-saturation or exposure, which is a lot harder to fix because the pixels have been destroyed, not merely squished.
After I edited the photo used in this post, the histogram looked like this:
As you can see, the histogram is a lot more evenly spread. It doesn't have to be perfectly level - in fact, you don't want that. You just want it more balanced than when it's pushed up against a side.
But when you're editing, you don't really need to reference the histogram. I've used it to simply demonstrate what I'm trying to achieve and why when I'm editing.
So, I have some really quick and easy tips to make your photos look colour and light balanced:
1. Slide the highlights completely out. 2. Slide the shadows completely out. [BONUS if you have photoshop - use the camera raw filter:] 2a. Hold down the alt or option key and slide the whites until there are only a few pixels peeking through. 2b. Hold down the alt or option key and slide the blacks until there is 15% pixels peeking through. 3. Arrange the contrast to look natural again. 4. Fiddle with the temperature and tint sliders until the photo isn't washed orange, blue, magenta or green. 5. Either fiddle with the shadows or the clarity (or both), because sometimes pulling out all the colour values can make it look too sharp.
Then you can change the saturation or exposure to make some final changes, but those 5 (or 7) steps will balance a photo satisfactorily most of the time.
I will note that you should be careful to use high quality photos when doing this, otherwise you won't achieve the results you want because the pixels you want to edit simply don't exist. The photo I used wasn't necessarily the best quality but the colours were so beautiful when extracted that I had to use it.
This technique also doesn't leave you restricted to one style of edit. Once you've balanced it, it's easier to go and give it other effects - like a fade - or to choose to stylise it by deliberately adding colour washes, because you've got a balanced canvas to work with.
Anyway, I felt like sharing, so there you are! I hope it helps someone.
See the original and final edits below.
PS. Also, just for reference, this is what the sliders looked like when I was done:
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