5 Tips for Editing and Creating Beautiful Digital Photo Projects

I love digital photography. I could take pictures of my children all day. For the most part, they love being my subjects.They have their favorite poses. Their favorite outfits. And thei favorite props.

My son loves to be photographed with anything sports or bug related. My middle child loves to be photographed with her American Girl doll. My youngest child loves her baby dolls in her photographs.

Occasionally I venture into other subjects that I like to photograph when my kids refuse. However, I mostly stick with my kids. Here are my tips for editing and creating beautiful digital photo projects.

1. This is my absolute best tip: ALWAYS KEEP A CAMERA HANDY.  ALWAYS!

I own five cameras. One really nice DSLR and several digital cameras plus my camera phone. I keep the cameras all over the house, one in the car and I basically NEVER am without a camera.

You never know when there will a moment that you will want to capture and always being ‘camera ready' will insure that you get these moments.I have gotten some amazing pictures from living by this philosophy.

2. Don't always center your photograph. This works really well with the editing process.

I recently took a digital photography class and the one thing that the teacher kept saying was “DON'T BE AFRAID TO NOT CENTER YOUR SUBEJCTS.” She must have said it 50 times. Once I finally learned that it was okay not to center, a whole new world opened up for me.

3. Experiment with color. Try a sepia tone for rich, brown or tan looking photographs. I absolutely loves sepia prints and they can definitely make anyone look better. In my opinion, sepia really evens out skin tone and creates a beautiful looking picture.

4. Take away the color. Black and white adds a whole new dimension to a photograph.Black and white can change the entire look of a picture.

If you want, you can even color in certain elements. I have colored in a hair bow that my child is wearing. Once I colored in the red cheeks of my son. This definitely added a whole new element to my picture and made it look amazing.

5. Try several different looks for one photograph. The second that my photos hit the editorial phase, I start experimenting with all sorts of looks. I make it black and white, sepia, I blur portions. I love to make all sorts of changes to see how good I can make the picture look. There are times when I print several different options of one photo because I love the different looks so much.

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