Many design jobs depend on photos: a product for an online shop, a pastor for a crusade poster, a deceased elder for a funeral poster, a smiling student for a school advert. Adverts for designers in Ghana often ask for photo editing alongside layout, and print shops expect you to fix a client's phone photo so it prints well.
Basic edits
Free editors such as Photopea in a browser, GIMP on a laptop and the editing tools inside design apps all offer the same basic edits.
- Crop to remove distractions and focus on the subject.
- Straighten so walls, tables and horizons are level.
- Brightness and contrast to rescue dark or dull photos.
- White balance to remove yellow or blue tints from indoor lighting.
- Remove background to cut a person or product out so it can sit on a clean colour.
Edit gently. Skin smoothed until it looks plastic, or colours pushed too far, makes work look cheap. The goal is a natural, clear photo.
Resolution: will it be sharp?
A raster photo has a fixed number of pixels. That number decides how large it can be used before it looks blurry.
- For screens, an image around 1080 pixels wide is enough for most social media posts.
- , aim for about 300 pixels per inch at the printed size. An A5 flyer is about 5.8 by 8.3 inches, so a photo filling it should be roughly 1750 by 2480 pixels.