3 Simple Tips To Improve Your Photos

hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and inside this video we are going to go
over three simple things you can do to
instantly improve your photography are
you ready let’s do it all right so we’re
going to go through a few sample images
together and I’m going to show you some
common mistakes that I see that are so
easy to tweak so easy to change and if
you take these things and you apply them
to your photography you will see instant
improvement so they’re simple they’re
basic but after I point them out you
will probably be like why wasn’t I doing
this before so first off we’ve got this
image in front of us we’re going to get
into it right away obviously you can see
that it was shot pretty underexposed I’m
having to increase the exposure probably
by about one and a half stops just to
get it looking normal now simply by
underexposing your images you’re going
to lose a lot of dynamic range a lot of
detail there’s gonna be other issues too
and so let me show you if you go up into
Lightroom and you look at the actual
camera settings you can see exactly what
this image was shot at it was on a 35 ml
lens on F 1.8 at one 80th of a second
now the problem with that one 80th of a
second as well is when you’re shooting
with shutter speeds that are so slow
you’re going to have even more blur even
more loss of detail because that
fraction of a second if someone is
moving you’re going to lose that
crispness so you never want to shoot
with a super low shutter speed like that
it would have been so much easier just
to raise the ISO on this image it would
have been way more clean you would have
had way more dynamic range by properly
exposing it in the first place but all
of these things are not even what I want
to point out as tip number one and tip
number one is do you notice anything in
this photo that could be better or
anything that’s maybe a little
distracting let me add some contrast so
it’s not quite so terrible and adjust
the white balance now what I’m hoping
you’re picking up on is this stuff going
on in the background so what’s in your
image the focus of your image we want
that to be as strong as possible when
you’re taking a photo of somebody or a
scene whatever it is we want to minimize
distractions we really want the viewer
of our photography to know exactly what
it was that we intended them to look at
what the subject is and everything else
that takes away from that we want to get
rid of and that really really is
affected by your background now let’s
look at the background of this image
we’ve got the groom here who’s just
putting on his
jacket or his shirt and this is great
however in the background we have so
much distracting stuff we have this
t-shirt over here we’ve got these ugly
light switches over here we’ve got our
backpack it looks like on the couch
shorts on the couch leftover plate of
nachos granola bars papers all of these
things and had the photographer when
they arrived at the scene simply grabbed
these things and moved them out of the
way that in itself would have made an
extraordinary difference to the quality
of this shot in addition to some other
things now the second thing I want to
point out about this image that’s really
important is you can see how little
contrast there is around the groom here
around his hair around his face we’re
losing a ton of contrast because of this
window in behind now it’s really ironic
here is that this shot was shot super
dark but it didn’t need to be dark all
the photographer needed to do was
actually just move around and shoot it
from the other direction
taking use and making use of this
gigantic beautiful window there’s gonna
be nothing better in terms of lighting
than natural light so if they had simply
gone over to where this couch is today a
wouldn’t have had to even clean this up
but B would have had this really nice
window light properly exposed on the
groom and his best man over here okay so
that’s the first thing that I wanted to
talk about it’s when you are taking a
photo you need to focus on all of the
details that are taking away or adding
to the image if it’s taking away do your
best to get rid of it crop it out
whatever it is when you have a big light
source you also want to take advantage
of that because the problem is that if
we actually look closely here we’re
losing so much contrast simply because
the window is blowing things out and
we’re going to have such issues when it
comes to actually getting the skin tones
looking properly looking properly that’s
not a word but all of this because the
tungsten lights are still on in this
room even though we have this nice big
beautiful window simply moving use your
feet use your mind really think about
the basics it’s the basics that make the
photo if you get all of these basics
right it’s going to make such a huge
difference it’s not about these top
secret techniques is just doing the
simple things right doing the
foundational things right now let’s look
at another image from the same exact set
so let me just straighten this so you
don’t go crazy looking at crooked lines
it’s still crooked and you can see
that’s because this photo is taken off
center so if you’re going to be shooting
anything that actually has geometry or
anything that has straight lines or
lines that are supposed to be straight
and you always
shoot those straight on because
otherwise you’re going to get this weird
warping now inside of Lightroom we can
actually go down to lens Corrections
enable these profile Corrections going
to transform press Auto and it will look
for these lines and try and straighten
them for us so you can see that it’s
done a pretty good job
most of these lines are reasonably
straight but we still haven’t been able
to totally counter exactly what was
wrong in the first place anyways that’s
not the point of this image what I
wanted to focus on are these ugly
tungsten lights now that lights
themselves I don’t really have a problem
with them but the the issue I do have is
when you turn this down you can see
we’ve got this really weird color cast
on his shirt if you look really closely
we’re gonna try and zoom in here on his
shirt we’ve got like this red this
orange we’ve got blue streaks in the
shadows of his shirt and the reason we
have all of these colors it’s a plethora
of color on his shirt is because we have
this big window over here remember from
our last shot we’ve got this big window
bringing light into the room but we’ve
also got these tungsten lights on and
the tungsten lights when we zoom in you
can see that they’re very orange very
yellow which is fine if that’s all that
is lighting the room because we can
color correct for that using our white
balance tool but the problem is if we
color correct for those and make them
look normal then all of a sudden our
groom here is looking pretty blue
because we have the window light which
is way higher in Kelvin it’s 5400 these
tungsten lights are 3400 and so we have
this really weird kind of color a cast
going on and I see this all the time
because photographers forget to shut off
the overhead light so when you first
arrive at a location whether it’s for a
wedding or a portrait shoot whatever you
want to avoid whenever you can mixing
light unless it’s done really
intentionally stylistically
and you’ve got a specific vision in mind
you don’t want to be mixing light where
we have some tungsten on his face some
daylight that’s just going to make
things look really unnatural and give a
weird color cast to our image so in
addition to that you can see our first
point carries over watch the background
look at all of the stuff that is down
here it would have been so easy just
when you first arrived at this location
to take this stuff move it put it away
and shut off the TV no sense having
that’s really glaring background right
there had that been shut off it still
would have been you know not perfectly
beautiful however it would have been far
less distracting and would have lent
more to this image rather than having
all of these distractions these
overhead lights this TV the Xbox
controllers the hangers all of that
stuff really would have cleaned up the
image by doing that and by shooting
again straight on because when it’s shot
crooked like this there’s only so much
you can do and it’s going to mess with
your eyes as well okay let’s jump over
to our next image and this one is an
illustration of what you should do if
you arrive at a wedding and event
whatever it is and the lighting
conditions are not really great so the
reason I show you this image is because
it’s a pretty decent image the lighting
is nice we’ve got an overcast day so
things are reasonably soft but really
what’s ironic is that you know where
this guy got ready was in in this house
over here
now the house looks like this had the
photographer simply gotten the guys to
move outside the photos would have been
so much better the lighting was better
there was more room there was less
distracting backgrounds it’s prettier
everything would have been better if
that photographer had simply taken
control of the situation and said hey
guys I’m loving loving what you’re doing
I’m wondering if we can just move it
outside for 15 minutes here as you guys
button up your shirts and we’ll get some
photos there cuz the light is going to
be a lot better had they simply taken
control and taken that initiative and
really just found the best possible spot
and moved those guys to it she he she
wouldn’t even have needed to clean up
they could have just moved the groom
moved the guys and taken some great
photos would have been so much better so
that’s the reason that photo was in
there tip number three I suppose is to
take control of the situation of the
shoot you’re the photographer
you were the professional and don’t be
afraid to explain to people you know you
don’t want to be bossy but you can say
hey this will be so much better if we
could just move outside for a couple of
minutes you know it can be a compromise
they don’t have to get ready the entire
time in this one spot outside they want
to put on their pants inside that’s fine
but afterwards just the final touches
move outside that would have been way
better in this specific situation okay
now the very last thing that I want to
show you is again focusing on the
background and what takes away from the
image so we look at this photo right
here it’s it’s pretty good right we’ve
got some nice color things are well
exposed we’ve got a decent composition
here let me tell you two things that I
think really would have been helpful in
making this photo better the first is a
little bit of extra room we don’t want
to crop out her dress but we’ve lost
that you can always crop in later always
shoot a little wider than you need to
because you can always crop in you can
never crop out now the second thing is
just the overall
composition and the background would
have been better if the camera had
either been a little bit lower to the
ground
or they’d simply moved the composition
so the photographer let’s say they’re
standing here had moved over here and
shot in this direction and the reason
for that is in the background we had
this great huge lawn this really bright
green lawn and as as great as the photo
is it would have been so much better if
they had either lowered their camera so
that there was less lawn and more of
these trees in the background more of
those beautiful bokeh balls whatever or
if they’d simply moved over here and
there was less grass in the background
and more of these darker tones because
you’re going to focus more on the couple
if there’s more contrast in the
background a nice dark background is
going to add as much as possible to it
let me show you a contrasting image so
this photo was taken in that other
direction I just talked about and it’s
much more aesthetically pleasing whether
or not the actual pose the photo is
better obviously it’s a slightly
different lens but it’s just to
illustrate when we have this big grassy
area versus simply moving simply
rotating it makes a big difference
so take control of your situations be
conscious of the background and
everything that is taking away from the
photo we always want to be watching for
those things what can we do oftentimes
it’s as simple as just moving over or
slower in your camera or turning off the
overhead lights or cleaning up the
background or moving outside whatever it
is as a photographer take control of the
situation don’t be afraid to do that
that’s okay and after all people are
hiring you because you are an expert so
don’t be afraid to use your expertise to
take control of this situation and just
to make things the best that they can be
as a photographer the last thing you
want to do is rush yourself and pressure
yourself and just shoot without thinking
you want to take a step back you want to
take a breath feel free to do so and ask
yourself okay how can I make this the
best it can be because that’s going to
give you a better result than just
rushing and praying that things that
work out okay so that’s it for today
just a couple of really quick tricks
that will instantly improve your
photography just those basic things
mastering the fundamentals is going to
get you so much more mileage than the
next Lightroom trick or the next editing
thing if you can really master these
things get the photos right in camera
it’s going to make everything about
editing so much easier when it comes to
actually applying your presets getting
the look that you want it’s going to be
so much easier because your photo is
already well exposed all you have to do
is just dial things in grab your preset
adjust the exposure and things are good
to go
so if
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leave a comment for me below if you want
more videos like this or if you have
other tips that have really made a huge
difference in your photography and are
just basic things to apply I’d love to
hear about those finally if you’re
interested in this free preset that I
just applied from our clean and classic
pack I will leave a link to that in the
description below so make sure to check
that out and I will see you in the next
video peace