Basic image touchup in PS. AKA what you should do to every photo

Hello. Today I'm going to share a few simple steps that you should be doing to digital photos in order to make them them look better. Straight out of the camera is never going to give you the best results. Remember, however, that Photoshop only develops a photo; you cannot make a poor photo a good photo. It all starts with proper composition and exposure.

The two basic adjustments you need to make to every photo is to add contrast and sharpening, and both are simple procedures.

Step 1: Open up your photo in Photoshop.

I'm not going to get into cropping at this point but you should crop your images 8x10 or less using the standard presets. Cropping them to standard sizes ensures that they will print correctly on the paper. Custom sizes are a different story.

Step 2: First, let us add contrast. Open up the curves dialog Image > adjustments > curves.

Make a simple S curve by clicking on the line. You want to add a point on the bottom left and drag it down ever so slightly. Add another point near the upper right and drag it up just a touch. Make sure you have the Preview button checked so you can see what is going on in real time.

Step 3: Now all you have to do is sharpen it a bit. Go to filter > sharpen > unsharp mask. Yes, it says unsharp but it will actually sharpen. Don't ask. Once the dialog window is open, start with 60 4 and 1 as your base numbers. There are other base nember methods but this is the one I learned from Adobe's Scott Kelby.

Depending on the image, the range you probably want to stick with for the first number is between 55 and 70.

Here is the final product.

Subtle but effective. The things you want to avoid are adding to much contrast and over sharpening. If your highlights are blown out then your curve is too extreme. If you see a glowing halo around your subjects then you have over sharpened.

Keep in mind that every image is different, and therefore the same adjustments will not work correctly on every photo. Play around with these settings but do not go too extreme. These simple steps will do wonders for your out of the camera images.