How to Edit Photos: Beginner Programs & Software – These free & paid options are my favorite way to edit photos as a beginner, and even still today!
How to Edit Photos
Honesty Moment: When I first bought my camera, I thought I would be able to push the button, and I would have fantabulous images immediately.
Uh… no.
Now even though I’ve gotten better at taking photos, and have all of the photography equipment that I need to operate my blog…I still need to edit them. Reason being, it could have been a quick moment that I didn’t have time to adjust the settings on the camera, I simply forgot to adjust, or the lighting just wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
Plus… if you’re a blogger, you know that we like to add titles and headers to our images for social media, right? So editing is always on my to-do list.
3 User-Friendly Programs:
Whether you have a fancy-schmancy camera, or you’re snappin’ pics with your iPhone, and are a blogger or someone who just wants to take photos of their family and make them look a wee bit better… I’m going to give you 3 programs that are super user-friendly.
In no particular order…
Beginner Friendly Programs to Edit Photos:
- Lightroom
– I started out using this program, as a cheap alternative to Photoshop. I LOVE using Lightroom because it allows me to upload a ton of photos at once and take a peek at them all at the same time.
With PicMonkey or Canva (that I’ll mention next), you can only upload one photo at a time to edit.
If you’re a blogger, Lightroom is one of my most recommended editing programs. Now, it DOES take some time to learn how to use every aspect of Lightroom (I’m still even unsure of all that it does) but it is user-friendly from the get-go with the basics of editing.
With time, you can keep learning more and more of what it can do. It can do WAY more than PicMonkey and Canva.
NOTE: This is Adobe program, so when it takes you to the Adobe website so you can get Lightroom yourself, just select the “Creativity & Design” tab in the nav bar to find it!
Get Lightroom here: Lightroom
- PicMonkey – When I first started out blogging, I’ll never forget about finding out about PicMonkey.
It was like Heaven’s gates opened because I could edit one quick photo in a snap!
I had also realized that was how other bloggers were able to put “text,” and pretty little designs on their photos, and make collages with their photos, like on Pinterest! Hallelujah!
They do offer a free version, but I paid for the upgrade, and SOOOO glad that I did. I have access to more fonts, more images, no ads, etc. It was SUPER reasonable for all that you get.
Get PicMonkey here: PicMonkey
- Canva – I’ve become such a HUGE fan of this design program. For some reason, I struggle with combining fonts, when I want to put a title image, on my photo that I share on social media.
Canva has fonts already grouped together, so it takes the guess-work out of making something look “eye-catching,” and within seconds, I usually have the perfect “heading,” on my photos.
Check out Canva here: Canva
What Photo Editing Software I’m NOT Using:
Note that I didn’t mention that I use, Photoshop (which also an Adobe program).
Why don’t I? Well because I heard it was expensive, and kind of hard to get to learn. Ain’t nobody got time for dat. I’m a mom. When I get a free minute, you better believe I’m going to be trying to scrub that caked on ravioli off of the wall that my kiddos played foosball with last night. But if you’re ready to tackle it, go for it!! Get Photoshop here: Photoshop
So I started out with the free programs, playing trial and error, and figuring out what “looks,” I liked, for my photos. I’m so glad that I didn’t start out spending a TON of money on editing software.
Now… will I purchase photoshop one day? Probably. Because I have heard of all of the great things that it can do for my blog.
I hope you find one of these editing programs to be helpful! I know how confusing and overwhelming it can be at first! As always, never hesitate to reach out with questions! I’ll sure help if I can!
In the meantime, I’ve listed ALL of my favorite photography and camera equipment resources so you can get a better idea of everything that I’ve used for a long time, and LOVE!