Photo Editing Basics: Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Warmth

A few small adjustments before sharing a phone photo improve it noticeably. The key is knowing what each adjustment does and correcting the photo without overdoing it.

What the adjustments do

In which order?

1. Crop and straighten first: set the framing and the horizon.
2. Fix the light: balance overall brightness with exposure and brightness.
3. Set contrast: adjust the photo's depth.
4. Correct color: balance with warmth, set vividness with saturation.
5. Finishing touches: leave style effects such as vignette, fade and grain for last.

Tips for natural results

• Small changes, big effect: move values in small steps; most photos need only subtle tweaks.
• Watch skin tones: too much saturation and warmth turns skin orange.
• Compare before and after: checking the edit against the original often helps you notice overdoing it.
• Be consistent across a series: similar settings across a post or profile create unity.

Presets

Filters are preset combinations of several adjustments. They're a good starting point; fine-tuning the settings for your photo after applying one gives better results.

With the Photo Editor you can pick one of 12 filters or set brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, hue, exposure, fade, vignette, grain and blur yourself. Press and hold the preview to see the original, and download the result at full resolution.