Photo Editing

Explore & Discover

Pull up a photo on your phone — maybe one from a hike up Millcreek Canyon or a ski day at Alta. Now open it in Snapseed (free on iOS and Android) and just poke around. Tap every tool. Drag every slider. You're not trying to make it perfect; you're trying to see what's actually possible. Notice how "Tune Image" affects brightness and color, how "Details" can sharpen a blurry background, how "Perspective" can straighten a crooked horizon. Don't save anything yet — just explore. Look up a few before-and-after edits on YouTube to see what pros do with ordinary photos. You're ready for the next step when you can name at least five different editing tools and describe what each one does to a photo.

Learn the Basics

Now you're going to learn the three core moves that professional editors use on almost every photo: exposure, color, and cropping. Open Snapseed or GIMP (free on desktop at gimp.org) and load a photo you actually care about. First, fix the exposure — brighten shadows and pull back highlights so you can see detail everywhere. Second, adjust white balance to make colors look natural (or intentionally dramatic). Third, crop to remove distracting edges and guide the viewer's eye to the subject. Watch the free Snapseed tutorials on YouTube by Serge Ramelli — they're fast and specific. Practice on three different photos: one portrait, one landscape, one action shot. You're ready for the next step when you can consistently improve a flat, dull photo using just these three adjustments.

Build Your First Project

Pick your ten best photos from a single outing — a school event, a family trip, a neighborhood walk. Your goal is to edit all ten so they look like they belong together: same mood, similar brightness, consistent color tone. This is called creating a "cohesive set," and it's what separates snapshots from real photography. Use Snapseed's "selective" tool to fix specific spots without affecting the whole image. Try the "Looks" presets as a starting point, then customize them. If you want to go further, import your photos into Lightroom Mobile (free tier available) and experiment with syncing edits across multiple images. You're ready for the next step when you can show a set of ten edited photos where someone looking at them can immediately tell they came from the same person and the same day.

Experiment & Iterate

Time to break the rules on purpose. Take one photo and edit it five completely different ways: ultra-bright and airy, dark and moody, high contrast black-and-white, warm golden tones, cool desaturated blues. Save all five versions and compare them side by side. Now try double exposure (blending two photos together) using Snapseed's "Double Exposure" tool — combine a portrait with a Utah landscape for a surreal effect. Experiment with the "Healing" brush to remove unwanted objects from a scene. Keep a simple notes doc where you write down which settings you used for edits you love. You're ready for the next step when you can produce three dramatically different moods from the same original photo and explain the specific settings that created each one.

Advanced Techniques

Level up with techniques that most casual editors never learn. In GIMP or Lightroom, explore layer masks — they let you apply an edit to only part of an image with precise control. Learn frequency separation, a technique portrait photographers use to smooth skin while keeping natural texture. Try luminosity masking to make dramatic sky replacements look realistic. Study the histogram: that graph isn't decoration — it tells you exactly where your photo is losing detail. Watch Aaron Nace's free tutorials on phlearn.com for GIMP-specific techniques. Practice retouching a portrait so the edit is invisible — the goal is for people to think the subject just looks that good. You're ready for the next step when you can retouch a portrait using at least two advanced techniques and the result looks completely natural.

Final Project Showcase

Create a polished photo editing portfolio with ten images that show your range. Include at least one portrait, one landscape (Utah has no shortage of stunning ones), one action shot, and one creative composite or double exposure. For each photo, write two to three sentences explaining what the original looked like, what you changed, and why you made those choices. Share your portfolio on a free site like Adobe Portfolio or Google Sites. Post your best single edit to a photography community like r/photocritique or Flickr and respond thoughtfully to any feedback you receive. You're ready for the next step when you have a public portfolio that clearly shows before-and-after edits and demonstrates at least four different editing styles or techniques.