There are hundreds of photography sites online...you can google and take classes and get free tutorials all over the place...I just tell you this because I want you to know that it's out there...and I am by no means an expert.
I thought I'd just share tiny tips that I have used to just enhance my photos a bit here and there...
Here's a photoshop tip...if you have any Adobe photoshop Elements program, you can use this tip...the screens you'll see are from Photoshop Elements 7.0
Here's what I do to a number of my photos to make them pop a bit more...you'll often hear it referred to burned edges..
#1: Open your picture in the program
#2: go over to the layers palette and click on an adjustment layer. It's the half black and white cirlce and scroll your mouse to the Brightness/contrast. Once the sliders show up, you can slide your brightness and contrast to your liking...I normally just boost it a bit to make the colors pop, but not so much that you wash everyone out.
Adjustment layers are really neat because you can do things to photos without actually changing the image itself..you can also do an adjustment layer on the hue/saturation at this point if you wanted. And, I may decide to after it's all said and done...maybe I want to make the pink sweatshirts POP...so I'd just choose my saturation slider and move it to the right until I get the color I like...
#3 Once you've gotten the brightness/contrast fixed to your liking...go ahead and choose another adjustment layer by clicking on that same circle, but choose levels this time.
See that slider...get your arrow/mouse onto the middle triangle slider and move it to the right...keep going just a bit (not all the way to the right, but enough to darken the picture)
see how dark my picture got?
#4 Now, in your layers palette, you have 3 layers: the original picture, the brightness/contrast layer and now the levels layer....Take your arrow over to the gradient button in the tool bar. Once you click on it, make sure that the gradient chosen is the middle light, with dark around all the edges of the square. You'll see this at the top ofyour screen. If all is chosen, take your new little gradient cursor and click it on the center of your picture and drag it to one corner...
What you'll notice in your layers palette now, is that the levels layer has this dark middle to it...what happened is that it "erased" some of the darkening...it basically lets the brightness shine through more and you get that dark edge look...
We're almost done...
#5 Finally..the gradient button does a great job, however, sometimes you need just a leeeeetle more brightness...sooo, first make sure that your top color chosen is black...it works opposite in this case: black means erase, white means darken.. Then go and click on the brush...make sure you choose the soft brush and make it a fairly large size...then go and "color" on top of the faces....if you check your layers palette, you'll see that the levels layer will begin to get darker each time you "brush". (FYI: make sure that the levels layer is the one selected, otherwise you'll start "erasing" one of the other layers instead)
In the end you'll see just a subtle difference, but I like the depth it gives to photos...
Now you can just save your picture as a new name and TADA, you're finished!
I hope that all made sense...please let me know if you need any more clarification...it can be a little tricky starting out, but once you get just a few things under your belt, you start to experiment and it's just plain FUN!
