MASTER PRODUCT

PHOTO EDITING
Go from this...

To this!
INTRODUCTION

Photo editing can be a contentious subject, you will find those who think editing is cheating. When
it comes to photos of your products, editing them to make the photos show your product off better
is not a bad thing.

Spending a little time to make your photos

look better will make your business look more
professional and help increase sales.
PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS
This tutorial will take you through the steps to
make small changes to your images to improve • Use a tripod! I can’t say this enough,
them ready to be loaded up to your online shop whether you shoot with a camera or
or use on your social media feeds. phone a tripod will help you get the
sharpest photo you can achieve.
The photo I’ll be editing is a wirework pendant.
An important point to note at this point is that • Concentrate on focusing, You need
the original photo (shown below) is a large file sharp images of your work in order to
and the piece is perfectly in focus. get the best out of editing them.

Along with editing your images it is really • Take lots of photos, we live in a
important to spend time shooting your products digital age so you are not restricted to
as well as you can. It’s vital to make sure your how many photos you can take.
pictures are completely in focus. Nothing looks • Shoot from different angles, it’s
less professional than a blurry product shot. sometimes hard to see what angle
looks best until you see the images
on screen so vary the angle to cover
Pixlr.com all bases.
The photo editing software we will use is a free • If you need to shoot down, think
online photo editor by Pixlr.com. about setting up your shot on the
You upload and edit your images right in the floor. It’s easier than trying to hold a
browser, so you will need internet access. camera or phone high up and keep
it steady.
The files are then saved and downloaded onto
your computer. • Remember to shoot the back, if the
piece has something worth showing!
This tutorial uses Pixlr E, which is their option
with advanced tools. • Use a model. If you can, shoot any
product that should be worn on a
They do a pared down version for quick editing person, it’s not essential but will help
called Pixlr X. It has very similiar tools and is show scale, size and fit. You don’t
useful for really quick crop and lightening jobs. have to show the face..

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 PIXLR.COM
This photo editor is amazing and the
basic account is free to use. You can do a
lot of editing and the tools are very similiar
to Photoshop.

It’s super easy to use, you just need time

and a bit of patience!

INSTRUCTIONS
Click on the Advanced PIXLR E button or the
link in the menu to launch the editor. The first
screen you’ll come to is this one.

Tip! Before you start, organise your

raw images into a folder that’s easy
to find on your computer.
Click the Open Image button to access the
images on your computer.

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Select Your Image
By clicking on the Open Image button a window
to your computer should open where you can
select the image you want to work on then
click on the open button (bottom left of popup
screen).
A pop up window may appear called Pre-resize
Image. You’ll only get this popup if your raw
image is very big. If it does appear select Ultra
and click Apply

Tip! Always edit a photo in the largest

size file you can, as that gives you
more pixels to work with. Resize at the
end of the editing process.

As soon as you click open (or

apply if you got the pre-resize
popup) the editor will open and
you’ll see this screen.

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Photo Editor Screen Layout
Anyone familiar with Photoshop will see that a
lot of the symbols used for the different tools on
the left side menu are similar.

You can zoom in and out of the

photo using this sliding bar.

Tip! As you zoom in and out the red

box in the thumbnail view will move so
you can grab that to see the part of the
photo you want to work on.

Place the cursor inside the red box,

click and hold the cursor down to drag
the box to move the main view.

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Changing Exposure
Tip! Using any of the Adjustment
Often photos are under exposed (too dark) if you settings is a bit of trial and error. So
are using a phone or a camera set on automatic. just have a go and work by eye, if it
looks fine on your screen it will look
ok on most screens.

Go to Adjustment on the top menu and click

on Exposure.

Slide to adjust the exposure as much as you feel

it needs, but don’t go too far. There are other
ways to lighten and brighten an image that we
will use so don’t over expose your image by
mistake as you’ll lose detail.

Click Apply to save the setting.

Tip! To see the extremes of how any of

the slider settings work, slide them all
the way up to 100. It often helps you
understand what the setting is doing.

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 Using Brightness and Contrast
Go to Adjustment on the top menu and click on
Brightness & Contrast.

Any of the lightening settings on a photo should

be used subtly. You want to keep as much detail
in the photo as possible.

Moving the slider to the right will increase the

brightness or contrast.
Tip! To see the difference your changes are
Don’t over do the brightness as it will blow out a
making to the image, click and hold on the
lot of the colour as shown here.
little rectangle button that appears on the
bottom left corner of the settings popups.
This will flick back to the original unedited
photo when you click and hold it down.
Release the button to go back to the edited
version you are working on.

Contrast is the same, if you over do it you’ll end

up with a hard and dark look to the photo.

When you are happy with the settings, click

Apply to save them.

This image looked its

best with a 35 increase
for brightness and
15 for contrast.

Tip! Use contrast to balance

brightness. They work well together.
Often a little increase in contrast
will bring the shadows back into a
brightened photo.

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Using Highlights and Shadows
Go to Adjustment on the top menu and click on
Highlights & Shadows..

As said before use these settings subtly.

Moving the slider to the right will increase

highlights and decrease shadows.

As photos are often too dark to start with you

may find you need to play around with shadows
and take some out.

This shows the highlights increased to the

maximum, which is way too much.

This shows the shadows slider all the way to the

right, which has taken out most of the shadows
and flattened the image.

Tip! If your photo is lacking shadows

then try moving the slider to the left to
increase them.
This photo only needed a slight adjustment to
highlights and shadows. It ended up at 50 for
highlights and 15 for shadows.

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Cropping
The crop tool is the first one we’ll use from the
left side menu.

Crop is an easily recognisable symbol

as pretty much every program uses this
same symbol for cropping.

Click on this symbol to crop your photo.

The ratio your photo needs to be will depend on

where it’s going. I like to use square images for
product shots as they sit nicely on any screen
(whether it’s a computer, tablet or phone). The finished tutorial example cropped square.

You can crop a photo using Free and change

the size and shape by dragging the corners or
sides.

Tip! If you are processing images for

use on your social media feeds, do
an online search for good sizes for
images. Each platform (Facebook,
To make a square it’s easier to use Ratio (top Instagram etc.) will have a golden ratio
menu, highlighted in green) as that defaults to to fit their layout.
a square. When you drag the corners or sides it
will keep the square shape.

Click Apply in the top right hand corner to save

the crop.
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Using the Eraser
The eraser tool is on the left side menu towards
the bottom on the outside column.

This is the symbol. It does look like a

classic eraser being used on its side
against paper!

Click on the symbol to start using the eraser.

For the image I am using as the example I

am going to use the eraser to remove the
bottom of the bust that the pendant has been
photographed on.

This will let the focus of the photo be the

pendant and remove the distraction of the
background at the bottom.

Firstly we’ll look at the eraser brush settings.

As soon as you click on the eraser you get a top

bar with a range of settings. Click on the number
40 to get the dropdown menu to show.

This editor gives you a wide range of brushes,

you get a hard round edge, soft edge, very soft
edge, square and many more!

Erasing looks smoother if you use a soft edge

brush. That’s the one with the fuzzy edge.

I’m going to use the very soft edge.

Tip! Have a play with the different

brush shapes, you never know when a
star might come in handy!
At the top on this dropdown screen you can
adjust the brush size in pixels and increase or
decrease the softness of the edge.

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 Tip! Be patient and work steadily to
get the best result with the erasing
Erasing The Background brushes.
The size of brush you need will depend on how
many pixels wide your photo is. The photo I was
working on was 1859 pixels wide so I chose a
I set the opacity to 40%.
brush that was 500 pixels.

If you want to have a

transparent background. Click
on the padlock to unlock the
background layer.

The background will then erase

to transparent instead of white.

Start on one edge and work your way around

the piece going over the same area a few times
to create a smooth erased edge under (or
around) the piece.

Stay away from the product in the image as

you don’t want to accidentally erase part of
the piece.

When the edge of the bust has gone, up the

opacity to 100% and remove everything under
this back to a white background.

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On this image I was aiming for a clean white
background so I continued with a 500px 100%
opacity brush.

I erased up both sides stopping before I got

close to the cord and not getting too close to
the sides of the pendant.

I swapped to a 200px brush to do some final

erasing of the shadow around the pendant.

Tip! Use the zoom in the top right

corner of the editor to zoom in and
out on the picture as it can be easier
to see the shadows when the photo is
zoomed out as far as it will go.

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 Tip! Be aware that printing uses CMYK not
RBG colour settings so a photo processed
Saving The Image for the web might not print well and may
After you have finished editing the image, it need different adjustments.
needs to be saved back to your computer.

Go to the top menu, click on File and then Save

A popup window will appear with the Save

image settings.

It’s always a good idea to save a high resolution

image first, you never know when you might
need one.

Save the first image as a jpg with the quality at

100% (it defaults to 90%) and click download.

If you want your image to have a transparent

background save as a png.

Rename the file at the top if you wish and click

download to save it to your computer.

To save a web resolution image reduce the If you enjoyed this tutorial, join my Facebook
width and height to around 800px. group Master Your Wordpress Website for lots of
Rename the file with the word web at the end tips on websites, photos and social media ideas.
so it’s different from the high resolution file. Facebook and Instagram:
Reduce the quality to 60% and click Sapphire Blue Web Design
download. Website services: sapphireblueweb.design
Don’t be scared of saving the file at 60%, To find out more about my courses, join
screens don’t have the same pixel density as my mailing list Sapphire Blue Academy:
print so saving at this size will still show the sapphireblue.academy
image in nice sharp detail.
This tutorial is also available as a video on my
Small file sizes are essential for your website website and Facebook page.
to load quickly.
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