Editing 101:

Understanding the basics

Image Editing 101:

Have you ever needed to edit an image on your computer but weren't quite sure how to get started?

The truth is, almost any image can be improved with some slight editing.

While image editing might seem a bit complicated, you don't need to be a professional designer or photographer to learn how it works. Want proof? Take a look at the images below. We were able to make this photo look a lot better with a few simple adjustments, and they took less than five minutes to complete.

Understanding the basics:

We see digital image files every day in a wide range of places. Whenever you see a picture on a computer or smartphone, you're looking at a digital image file. When you take a picture with a digital camera, you're saving it as an image file. Even the images you see offline, like those in newspapers and magazines, probably started as digital image files before they were printed.

Have you ever thought about how image files actually work? Here are some of the basics.

Pixels:

Every digital photo is made up of pixels, often abbreviated as px. You can think of a pixel as a tiny square that uses a specific color. When you look at an image file on a computer, you're really looking at thousands and thousands of pixels. But because each pixel is so small, you normally won't notice each of them unless you zoom in.

Dimensions:

When you refer to the height and width of an image, you're talking about its dimensions. For example, if an image is 500 pixels wide and 200 pixels high, you could say that its dimensions are 500px by 200px (the width is usually listed first). Let's look at a few other examples.

The image below is 450px by 300px. Because this image is wider than it is tall, it's using a landscape orientation.

The image below is 300px by 450px. Because this image is taller than it is wide, it's using a portrait orientation.

Resolution:

You can think of an image's resolution as the amount of detail contained in the image. The higher the resolution, the more quality the image will have. Resolution is especially important if you're thinking of printing or resizing an image. This is because you can generally make an image smaller without noticing much of a difference in the quality. However, making an image larger than its original size will usually result in a noticeable loss in quality.

In the example below, the smaller version still looks sharp and clear.

If you try to make a low-resolution image any larger, it simply won't have enough detail to look good at the new size. As you can see in the example below, the resized image is blurry and doesn't have a lot of detail. You might also notice that some parts of the image look blocky, or pixelated.

Recommended file formats:

These are the most common file formats. We recommend using them most of the time:

JPEG: This file type is commonly used for photographs, and most digital cameras save photos in this format by default. JPEG uses lossy compression, which means it provides a reasonably high level of quality without a very large file size.

PNG: This file type is commonly used for graphics and illustrations, although it can also be used for photographs. PNG uses lossless compression, meaning photographs saved with this format will usually be of a higher quality than JPEG images, but the file size will be much larger.

Other common file formats:

There are several other image file formats you may encounter.

GIF: A Common image format. Pronounced gif or jif, the GIF file type was originally designed for graphics but is now most commonly used for simple animated images online.

RAW: This file format do not use compression, Professional style camera can be set to the RAW file format to save very high-quality images. Most professional photographers shoot images in RAW, if they don't, they should. Because this formats are uncompressed, the files tend to be much larger than JPEG and PNG files. In order to open RAW images, you need to have the correct editing software.

Image Editing Software:

Basic editing software:

There are many types of basic editing software from Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Google. There are also many third-party image editing applications you can use on your computer or mobile device. Some are free, while others are paid.

Advanced image editing software

There are also a variety of Advanced image editing software. We are going to focus on

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop:

Even if you've never done much image editing, you may have heard of Adobe Photoshop. Available for both Windows and Mac devices, Photoshop is an extremely powerful application that's used by many professional photographers and designers. It's also very expensive, so unless you need to edit photos professionally and can not get photoshop, you may want to consider one these more affordable (or free) options:

Photoshop Elements
Pixelmator
Snapseed
GIMP
Pixlr

Logging in to Adobe Photoshop:

We will do this together!!! DO NOT work ahead. If you do not log into PS correctly, you will not be able to access it, or you will end up with a 30 day trial and that trial will end before class does. Then your account will need to be put in as a work order and will take FOREVER - Just like the two computers we are supposed to receive.

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