Make your travel photos stand out with this detailed guide on essential editing and presentation techniques. Become a travel photography pro!
Travel photography is a fun hobby that anyone with a camera or mobile phone can take up. If you love to explore foreign destinations or find hidden gems in your own country, snapping pictures while you’re on the go is a fantastic way to share your experiences with a community and perhaps even make a little extra money on the side.
However, there’s more to travel photography than simply going around and taking pictures. Knowing how to edit and present your photographs in a compelling manner is vital. In this article, we’ll walk you through some key tips you need to follow in order to edit and present your travel photos like a pro.
Tell a Story Through Your Photographs
Presentation is just as important as the quality of your photos. It’s important to present your travel pictures as part of a cohesive story, and not just a random collection of aesthetic photographs. This is why so many travel photographers make use of existing photo collage templates when putting together the pictures they’ve taken while on vacation.
A well-designed collage takes your viewers on a journey through the place you visited, allowing them to experience your journey along with you. One way to organise a collage is to do so chronologically. Another strategy is to group pictures by themes: for example, you might dedicate an entire collage to a beach photoshoot that you just did, or to a cultural event that you attended.
There are countless ways to present your pictures in such a way that they tell a compelling story: collages are just one. Try your hand at different ways of presenting your pictures to learn what appeals most to your audience and what works best with your photography style.
Follow a Consistent Editing Process
During your travels to some of the best holiday season destinations, you’ll likely capture hundreds or even thousands of photos. These can take an inordinate amount of time to edit if you don’t have a consistent editing process you can follow for each picture.
Prior to editing, you should come up with a list of elements to touch up. You might start by removing major blemishes, then go on to improve the lighting, fix the contrast, crop out unwanted elements and so on. You can even come up with premade filters that you can apply to each of your pictures. Not only does this make editing a breeze, but it also gives you a personal style that your followers can recognise you by.
A word of caution about filters: while they can speed up the editing process tremendously, you shouldn’t solely rely on them. It’s still important to make individual edits to each picture. Also, a single filter might not work for every place you visit, so it can be a good idea to have several that fit different moods. Editing is as much an art as taking the pictures themselves, so come up with your own creative process and follow it.
Use AI to Streamline your Edits
Most people think of generative artificial intelligence as a tool for creating brand-new images, but it can also be used to speed up the editing process. AI can be used to identify and resolve blemishes in pictures, as well as apply any changes you want to make in a matter of seconds. This allows you to perform quick edits without getting into the complexities of your editing software.
When it comes to choosing an AI editing tool, you’re spoilt for choice. Industry-standard software like Adobe Photoshop and Canva have all incorporated AI to bolster their current features. There are also apps and programs that were designed with AI in mind, including Photoleap, Pixelcut and Luminar Neo.
Like any tool, AI is incredibly helpful when used correctly, but it shouldn’t be relied on completely. You should always go through your pictures after editing them with AI and perform manual edits where necessary. AI can speed up your work and help you spot flaws more quickly, but the overall artistic vision should be your own.
Don’t Over-Edit
Many photographers fall into the trap of over-editing their pictures. After all, it can be tempting to remove every single blemish and even add elements that weren’t previously there. However, this should never come at the cost of authenticity.
As a travel photographer, it’s important to remember that your pictures aren’t meant to be perfect: that’s what postcards are for. Whether you’re submitting your pictures to magazines or posting them on a social media page, viewers want to see an authentic representation of the place you visited.
When editing your pictures, make sure to leave in just enough flaws to keep them looking genuine. For instance, if, when looking through your photos, you notice a few elements that you hadn’t planned on capturing, like a stray animal in the background or the trailing leg of a pedestrian, consider leaving them in.
Also, not every single photo needs to be perfectly centred, especially if you’re doing a fast-paced activity like river rafting. Leave some room for imperfection when you edit your pictures.
Bringing Your Travel Photos to Life
Whether you’re travelling locally on a long weekend or flying out to a popular international destination for the holidays, snapping pictures of people, places and things can help you immortalise your experiences. Moreover, it’s also a great way to share what you’ve seen and done with the wider world.
When you’re out exploring new places, it’s easy to end up with hundreds (or even thousands!) of photos. The trick is in editing them in a way that feels effortless and consistent. A good editing process helps you save time and gives your photos a polished look that stands out.
Remember that editing is really all about making tweaks that are all designed to enhance the unique essence of the captured moment. So long as the heart and soul of the shot is kept intact, you’ll know that your editing process is delivering all the right results.