Having beautiful, engaging photos helps people connect to the story you are telling as a marketer. While many cameras take pretty decent photos these days on their own, knowing a few tricks to quickly edit using a more advanced program can really enhance the look and feel of your photos.

People are naturally wired to look at beautiful, interesting images. It’s best practice to make sure your photos capture the attention of your audience.

My favorite way to edit photos is by using Adobe Lightroom. It’s a robust program, great for beginners and intermediate users, where you can make your photos look professionally edited in just a few quick steps. Plus, the interface is incredibly user-friendly and easy to use. I believe you can get Adobe Lightroom for about $119 USD per year.

Tutorial Vlog!

In this post, I’m trying something a little new: a vlog! The video below will show you my screen as I work through my favorite edits using Adobe Lightroom to edit a photo.

In this tutorial, I go through a few very basic edits I like to do for most of my photos. I generally crop, play with light and color, reduce the appearance of wrinkles and cracks, and add a slight vignette to add depth and interest to photos.

These edits are all very subjective – by changing a few settings you can make your subject look like she’s full of life and vitality or you can make her look sadder, alone, or pensive. It’s all about the story you want to tell…and Lightroom can help you tell it! Make the photos you edit look how YOU want them to look.

Before you post a photo, take a few steps to edit them…I guarantee it will pay off!

If you aren’t ready to buy Lightroom, GIMP is a free photo editing, open-source software program you can download. I’ve used GIMP for years and really enjoyed it. My friend Chris also suggested Paint.net, which I’m sure is also great…I just haven’t had a chance to use it yet!

I hope you found the tutorial helpful. If you use Lightroom and either have questions or additional suggestions that may help others, please leave me a comment! I’d love to start a conversation about photo editing!