Filters and Effects to Help Increase Online Digital Photography Sales

As a freelance digital photographer I know altering a digital photos appearance can give you better sales. Depending on what your taking pictures of sometimes a digital picture can look rather bland and totally lacking originality without alterations. A photo has to be instantly attractive by the consumer or buyer and sometimes a digital camera cannot do this alone. The solution that a lot of freelance photographers have turned to is Photoshop or a Photoshop-like program. Photoshop can add filters and effects for a more artistic or a edgier look. You shouldn’t be afraid to experiment in order to ensure better sales. I will show you a couple of filters I use to upgrade a pictures presentation and increase my profits.

Noisy Photos

This is a simple filter that adds a very subtle change that is very good in particular photo instances. Noise will add speckles making a photo look older or taken by a vintage camera. Go to FILTERS – Noise – ADD NOISE. Check out the settings and change any if you like, and if you want blakc and white click the MONOCHORMATIC button. The filter is great for most digital pictures, but it isn’t recommended using this effect on macro pictures or anything with a ton of detail.

Significant Colors

A neat trick is to desaturate your photo leaving a color or two just as bright. This will make certain aspects of the photo stand out. It can give the picture a timely look and easily attract eyes to certain parts in your picture. This process is a it tougher to do, and involves multiple tools. Start off by going to SELECT – COLOR RANGE in the top menu bar. Now you should see your photo in a small box, use the eye dropper tool to select the particular color you want to stand out. Click on the “+” eye dropper button if you want to add another color. After you click OK go to SELECT (again) and click on INVERSE. This will select everything but the colors you have chosen. Finally go to IMAGE – ADJUSTMENTS – HUE/SATURATION and slide the saturation slider down to the amount of desaturation or how much color you want to take away. When your done it should have some bright colors with a duller background.

Show the Glow

Diffuse glow can make your pictures look heavenly or make your certain objects in your photo stand out. First, click on FILTERS – DISTORT – DIFFUSE GLOW, before using this filter make sure that you have the proper color in your palette. If you have blue in your bottom palette, your picture will diffuse glow blue. I usually only use white but you are free to experiment. This effect can only be used on certain types of photographs in order for it to look decent. I wouldn’t recommend trying this filter on freelance photos of people. A good time to use this filter is taking pictures of lights or nighttime photography.