Hey everyone! I’ve had a lot of you ask how to easily fix your photos in Photoshop. So many times you take a great photo with your camera, but quickly realize that it’s too dark, or has other problems that make it not quite as beautiful as you had imagined! Adobe Photoshop can be a BEAR of a program to navigate so I wanted to do a quick post on my top 3 super easy favorite Photoshop tools and tricks for beginners.

Top 3 Photo Problems for Beginning Photographers

As a beginning photographer, many of the issues you have with your photos are going to fall into these 3 categories:

• The photo is too bright, too dark, too flat or dull
• The photo has a weird tint
• The photo is great but has something distracting in the background that you would like to remove, or you have a spot on your shirt, stray hair, etc.

Photoshop used to be an incredibly expensive program to buy which made it impossible for most beginners to purchase. Luckily in the past few years Adobe has fixed that! It is now available as a monthly subscription for $9.99. Cheers to that! If you are a beginning photographer or just have a camera and want to take great photos of your kids, I highly recommend downloading Photoshop CC. It’s cheap and will make a HUGE difference in the quality of your photos!

Top 3 Quick Photoshop Tools and Tricks for Beginners

Here is a rundown of my top 3 favorite tools for taking your photo from “Meh” to “Wow!” Please note this post is a summary, check out the YouTube Video HERE to see full details.

• Curves Palette – Accessed in Photoshop by hitting Control + M on a PC, or Command + M on a Mac, you can quickly brighten or darken any photo. Pull up on the diagonal line to brighten, down to darken. You can also use an “S” curve to add some punch and contrast.
• Color Balance Tool – Many times, if you are in the shade you will end up with a strange bluish tint on the photo. Conversely, if you are under green trees or on a green lawn your photo may turn green due to sunlight filtering or bouncing through green leaves. Turning your subject green or blue usually is not very appealing LOL, so to fix this use your Color Balance tool in Photoshop. Access it by hitting Control + B on a PC or Command +B on a Mac.
• Spot Healing Brush Tool – Oh, how I love this tool. Quickly remove acne, stray hairs, random items in the background like a parked car or pedestrian, or fix imperfections in a solid background! Press “J” on your keyboard to easily access this tool while in Photoshop CC.

YouTube Tutorial – Top Photoshop Tips

To learn more about all of these tools please watch my YouTube video. My tutorial will walk you step-by-step through each tool. Leave me a comment with any questions you may have!

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