Quick Photo Editing for the Web

Maximize Your Time Optimizing Online Images

May 8, 2007

Photo libraries we want to put online can be extensive. Once you get the hang of editing photos for the web, these time-saving tips will help greatly.

Once you have gone through this process of editing a couple photos for the web you are probably staring at hundreds more you would like to work on. Fret not. Here is a list of tips for saving you time editing photos.

Learn Key Commands

Reaching for the mouse every time you want to do something seems like a little thing. You will save yourself hours over the long run by learning the keystrokes to execute certain commands. Key commands for menu items are listed in the menus, and mousing over tools and commands will reveal their shortcut commands.

Automate Common Procedures

In the Actions window (found in the Window menu) there is a list of common actions provided by the folks at Adobe. Few are actually useful for our purposes.

You can save your own set of actions to save you time in the future. You can automate any common actions that you do for all of your photos. A great set of actions to save for this series is the creation of your adjustment layers.

1) Click Create New Action icon in the Action Window (lower-right corner). Name the action something you will remember. Hit Record.

2) The program will now record your next actions. Create your three adjustment layers (without editing anything): levels, curves, and hue/saturation.

3) Hit the Stop Playing/Recording icon in the Action Window (lower-left corner).

4) Next time you open a photo, you can select this action and hit the Play icon in the Action Window and your adjustment layers will all be created.

Eyeball the levels. Don’t get too concerned with option-clicking the arrows to find “true black” in your photo. With some practice you will become faster at editing all of the adjustment layers.

Instead of going from color to color, simply adjust the Master which will change everything. Not ideal, but works in a pinch.

Bright Spots

You can try to crop out any bright spots or don’t worry about them to save time.

Optimal File Compression

Once you have the general settings established for exporting to the web, you can simply use these settings for all of your photos and not worry about any of the other steps.

As a demonstration of the difference between rushing through the steps, a photo was edited using all of the above tips first, and then again without using the above tips and meticulously editing each layer.