Change A Snapshot Into A Photo

Assuming a snapshot is a quick point and shoot and a photo is a well laid out combination of scene, people and light, how do you

Change A Snapshot Into A Photo?

If you want to avoid post processing, try to remember some basic rules:

1. Try to get the the sun, or a bright sky behind you.  If you shoot into bright light, the darks will be washed out.  iT IS ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT.
2. Remember the rule of thirds, for most photos.  Think of a tic toc toe board.  Put your main subject anywhere but the center box.
3. If you are taking a photo of a person, do not cut off the feet (see below).  There is away to correct this after fact, that I will get in to.
4. Fill the frame with what you want the eye to see.
5. Shoot a different angles.

This is a glacial park in Iceland

Issues with this photo:

1 Feet are cut off.
2. Subject not in horizontal AND vertical center of photo, but should probably not be in horizontal center.
3. People on left side are a distraction.

This photo needs post processing work.

From almost any camera, including a cell phone OR from your favorite computer software,  you could crop out the people on the left and change the photo to an upper body shot.

With some phone software you can also adjust contrast, brightness and clarity.

Since I did NOT cut off the feet in my original photo, I did some cropping and adjusting in Lightroom, to get the photo below.

I moved the subject, my wife, a bit off center horizontally and vertically.  The cropped, upper body photo, above however, would work just as well.

A longer list, with examples, is here.

And here

Glenn