To create a truly great photograph, a lot of different things have to come together – both in the field and back at your computer.
Getting any one of these things wrong can turn your dream shot into a snapshot! (We’ve all had that happen – don’t worry, you’re not alone!)
Here are a few quick tips to remember when you’re in the field:
1. Choose Your Light
When you find a location, consciously choose what kind of light would work best for your scene. You don’t always have the option to return during different light conditions, but it will probably work out better if you do! Is the light going to be in the right direction at sunrise or sunset? If you think there might be a cool shadow, then mid-day may actually be best. There is no such thing as bad light. But there is also “best” light.
2. Create a Compelling Composition
After you make your first shot, review it, and decide how you can make it better. Make each shot an improvement on the previous one by remembering your building blocks of composition: using leading lines; adding a foreground element; filling the frame with a pattern or texture.
3. Choose Your Depth of Field
Do you want everything in front of and behind your subject to be out of focus? Or do you want everything sharp? Don’t let your camera decide for you! Make a conscious choice and set your aperture accordingly.
4. Focus in the Right Place
Generally, for a grand landscape type of scene, you’ll want to focus about 1/3 of the way into the frame (and use a small aperture to get everything sharp). But if you have a more intimate type of scene, it’s better to decide what the most important element of the scene is and make sure you focus on it using spot focus.
5. Get a Good Exposure
After you make your shot, check your histogram to make sure you don’t have any blown out highlights or shadows that are too dark. It’s easy! If there is a spike on the right side of the graph, you have blown out highlights. A spike on the left side means there are areas that are totally black. If the exposure isn’t where you want it to be, use your exposure compensation to take it up or down a third of a stop and try again.
Now, to polish off your photo, there are also a few things to remember during post-processing:
6. Level Your Horizon or Shoreline
Try to get it right in camera. But if you don’t, it’s an easy fix in post-processing using the crop tool. There’s nothing more distracting than a horizon that isn’t level!
7. Increase the Contrast
Images that have more variation in tone are more dynamic. If everything is a mid-tone it has no depth. Every image is different but generally speaking images are better if they have dark tones, mid-tones and light tones. You can adjust the contrast using the contrast slider in the basic panel.
8. Add Some Vibrance
Increasing the vibrance or saturation in your image will add some punch to it. I find vibrance to be a little more subtle and natural looking. Still, it’s easy to over-do it, so only nudge it up a tiny bit.
9. Add Sharpening
You can’t use sharpening to fix an image that is out of focus. But if it is in focus, adding sharpening will make it extra crisp. Again don’t over-do it! You can also use the masking feature so you don’t add sharpening to areas of the photo that don’t contain detail – like the sky for example.
10. Remove Dust Spots
It happens. We all get dust on our lens or on the sensor. Especially if you’re at the beach where there is blowing salt and sand! Thankfully the spot removal tool makes it easy to remove them. It’s one of the best things about digital!
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for a great photo it is necessary that several aspects are in favor. Knowing how to choose the light and angle of each photo is very important however long it takes. Thanks for the tips, congratulations are great.
Many thanks Leandro, glad you enjoyed the post.
These are great tips, and totally agree the NUMBER ONE thing is a great composition! Beautiful photos take a little love sometimes!
They certain do! Thanks for your comments Janice 🙂
The article could also mention the quality of a good tripod or monopod?
Thanks for the suggestion Emmanuel, I’ll probably write a whole blog post just about that. I tried to keep this one very basic for people just starting out who probably don’t have a tripod yet. I appreciate your suggestion!
Hi Anne, thanks for the great tips, reviews, and hints, including your article on how use to these 10 quick photography tips and start making images with impact.
Pictures are really excellent also.
It certainly helps when we can read a blog such as yours, and be guided by it. Many adventures to be had by all.
Cheers Sharon…
Glad you enjoyed it Sharon! Thanks for your comments.
Great article and very informative! I’m just getting into photography so I found this really useful. Thanks for sharing this fantastic post..
Thanks for the great feedback Faisal!
ANNE In one of your recent posts there was a mention of a site where one could get expert/professional critique of a photo. I passed by it to go on with the article tha tI was reading and now cannot find it again. Could you please let know how to signup for an honest critique
Hi Gary, it must have been a reference to Photo Forté which was my online mentoring club. It ran for a couple of years but I closed it a year ago. It was tons of fun, but a lot of work for me, and I wanted to open up some time for other pursuits. So I’m afraid I don’t offer this kind of mentoring right at the moment. Sorry!
Great tips! Composition is everything. Rule of thirds really helped us to improve our photography. But you’re absolutely right – take that first shot and then adjust in the field. Again, great tips!
Hi Lance, glad you enjoyed the tips! I really enjoyed your post about Bergen too, looks like a great location. Many thanks for the visit and comments.
Hi Anna, thanks for this. In my opinion you hit the nail on the head with your number 1 point, the correct lighting! If people take 1 thing from your article here, this should be it 🙂
Yup, that’s why it’s #1 🙂 Thanks for your visit and comments, much appreciated!
Great article! I’m just getting into photography so I found this very useful. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Chau, thanks for the great feedback! Much appreciated.
Hi, Anne
In your courses you’re offering the one for PRACTICAL LIGHTROOM: There’s a typo on it. It says PRATICAL instead of PRACTICAL.
Thought you’d like to know.
Hi Tom, Oops! I can’t believe I didn’t notice that. Thanks for letting me know.