Step by Step Image: Payne’s Prairie

There are really two parts to making a great photo: taking the shot, and editing the shot. I’ve been on a journey to improve my skills in both, and occasionally I’ll be taking you through the exact steps I used to take a photo from the composition to the original shot to the final edited version. I’m hoping this level of candidness (rather than simply telling you what apps I used) will actually help you improve your photo taking and editing processes.

So today, let’s look at a photo I took about a month ago just outside of Gainesville, Florida. This view is from a short lookout deck in the middle of Payne’s Prairie. I snapped the photo with my iPhone 6’s native camera app:

The first (and only, it turns out) app I used to edit the photo is Snapseed, my go-to. Here are the steps I took:

Tune Image:

Ambiance: +74
Contrast: +3
Saturation: +18
Warmth: +3

Drama:

Filter Strength: +60
Saturation: +33

And that’s it! A pretty simple edit, really. The saturation makes the blue sky and green grass pop, while a slight adjustment to contrast and warmth are barely noticeable, but do improve the image in my opinion. Ambiance does a lot to improve the photo’s colors, and the drama filter increases the contrast where light pixels meet dark one – in this case, in and around the clouds.

Here’s the final result: