How I Edit Pictures~Picmonkey Tutorial

I received a comment the other day asking if I would do a post on how I edit my pictures. I am happily obliged to share how I edit, enhance or give my photos a vintage feel. First of all you need to make yourself an account through www.picmonkey.com. Most of the tools are free to use. However anything with a crown next to it is not free. I pay to use the extras since I am always messing around editing my pictures. There are tons of fun tools to use on this site. From cropping pictures to adding more color, taking out blemishes, enhancing eyes, teeth or skin. There are also many applications to make your pictures vibrant, vintage, black & White, sepia etc... You can spend a lot of time fiddling with everything. There is so much to do. I will share a few photos and keep it pretty basic as to what I usually use in my photos. After you make an account. Upload a picture.

I always start in basic edits. First I tweak the exposure. Here I usually eyeball how I want the brightness or highlights. Sometimes highlights will drown out the picture. So I use it very little, depending on the picture and how it might look. I also add a bit of shadow and contrast...

Which gives it sort of a glow.

Then I usually go to sharpen my picture..also giving it a bit of clarity. You may not need to sharpen your pictures if you feel it is a good photo. I like the picture to be a bit crisper if possible.

Sometimes if I want a burst of color I click the magic wand and go to burst or boost. You can adjust the bold color from there. Notice the flowers in the magazine are brighter and bolder in color?

Next I choose which filter I want my picture in. There are many to choose from. Here I went to Daguerreotype and clicked Shiro. This gives it an antiqued look. You can adjust the fade at how antiqued you want to the photo, even leaving some color to it. I am happy with this overall and felt I am done with the edit so I click save. That's it for this photo!

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Upload another photo. Go to basic edits. Twerk your brightness,

 highlights, shadows and contrast to your liking. Sharpen and add a bit more clarity if you desire.

After I did my basic edits...I wanted to give this photo a bit of sunglow to her face. Click your magic wand and scroll down to sunglow. Click on the area you want the sunglow. You can adjust the size of the glow as well as fade it if it's too much glow.

After I found the right spot. I saved and scrolled up to Time Machine then clicked Flo. 

I use this filter a lot for a vintage look. You can then use the fade button to your liking. I am happy with this photo. So now I will save it to my files.

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The next photo I am using is a scenery picture. Go to basic edits. Tweak your exposure to your liking. After that...I like to boost my scenery pictures with a bit more color. Click the magic wand and scroll down to boost or burst. This time I used Boost. Then tweaked the color to my liking. Just giving it a subtle bolder, brighter color boost.

After the boost I sharpened it a bit. I felt I wanted to enhance the brightness in the clouds. So I clicked the magic wand and scrolled down to Dodge then clicked mild.

A circle shows up over the photo. There I use my mouse and drag the circle over the cloud area just giving it a whiter look. I love this picture how it is. So I saved it to my files.

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The last edit is another picture of my sweet daughter. 

As always I start in basic edits and tweak the brightness, etc....

This photo was taken outside as the sun was going down and left it looking a bit blueish. So in order for me to fix the blue a bit I click colors. There you will see saturation and temperature. I just gave it a tiny bit of saturation and clicked the temperature button more to the right which gives it proper color...I usually just eyeball my edits to what I like. There is no formula as each photo you edit will be different from others. Next I sharpened it a bit.

Here I added just a touch of boost. After giving it a boost I went to my favorite filter in Time Machine...Clicking Flo. Then adjusted it to my liking.

Here are some other examples. instead of time machine you can use tranquil...

That is another filter I use a lot.

Instead of those try out Urban....It gives it a nice bold filter with darkened edges.

Or Rapture gives it a rosy pink vintage look.

Here I used silverscreen...I left a tiny hint of color in it while fiddling with the fade....

Kinda looks like old black and white photos.

The last photo below is Yester-color. Reminds me of photos from my childhood in the 70's.

There are so many filters you have to play around with them all...From there you will know what you like. It's a very easy, self explanatory sight... It's all up to you and your creativity how you want your special photos to look like. I do hope this helped out a bit! I do recommend paying for the extras if you edit your photos often...You have more choices to play around with! Have fun!!!