Picture this: So, you’re shooting photos for your blog. You think you’ve got the perfect shot — one that will be pinned and loved and remembered, until BOOM. You transfer it to your computer and notice something wrong with it. Ugh.

Sound familiar? Going back and reshooting is an option, but why make the effort when there is an even easier fix? Photoshop! Today, we’re discussing a few easy tools (and how to use them!) that you can use to enhance your blog photos in a snap. Here’s a little overview of what you’ll learn:

Ready to dive in?!

Sharpen Tool

Sometimes, certain parts of a photo can look a bit fuzzy and blurred out. To bring more definition to the details in your photos, you can use the sharpen tool. Select the sharpen tool in the tool bar and click on the areas of the photo that you’d like to enhance.

Another way to do this is by applying a filter. From the main menu, go to Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen. This will sharpen the photo as a whole and increase the definition. You can see the effect of the sharpening in the photo here where the edges of the (delicious!) cake pieces are more defined after using the sharpen mask.

Dodge Tool

This tool is truly a blessing in disguise! If a photo is underexposed in only certain places, increasing the overall exposure will blow out the brighter areas. In such cases, the dodge tool comes to the rescue. Select the dodge tool from the tool bar, and brush it over the underexposed areas. Voila! They are bright now. You can see how the right side of the photo below is brighter after using the dodge tool!

Related: How to get brighter, better photos in Photoshop in 60 seconds

Crop Straighten Tool

Despite all the funny ways we position ourselves while shooting photos, some of them may turn out crooked. We can fix the off-position, crooked photos using the crop tool. When you select the crop tool, a small arrow appears at the corners of your photo which you can use to rotate the photo. Rotate the photo until it’s aligned properly and then crop it to remove the extra bits from the corners of the photo. In the photo below, I used the crop straighten tool to align the lines on the white board with the overall frame of the photo.

Spot healing brush

For all those times when a tiny speck of dust makes its way into the photo, the spot healing brush comes in handy. Select the spot healing brush and click on the areas that you want to clean up. If there are large areas in the photo that you want to clean up, you can increase the brush size at the top in the toolbar settings to make it quicker. I used the spot healing brush to remove a few ink splatters and dust from my photo – easy peasy!

Marquee / Lasso Tool

Do you want to crop your photos into a circle, a star or any fun shape? You can use the marquee / lasso tool to draw out the shape and crop the photo. This can be very useful while creating blog post graphics or a circular profile picture like the one below. Here is a detailed tutorial on using the marquee tool.

Related: How to create a clipping mask and why it’s great for bloggers!

What are your favorite photoshop tools to edit your blog photos?

The post 5 Essential Photoshop Tools To Edit Your Blog Photos With (And How to Use Them!) appeared first on The Nectar Collective.