Photography has been around for 150 years, changing beyond all recognition in that time and occupying a completely different position in society. Early photographers needed a selection of chemicals and scientific techniques to produce their images, whereas today, anyone can produce thousands of images simply using their phone.
Photographs have gone from being an expensive and rare record of historical events and family portraits to an everyday way to capture the details of anything an individual wants to record. However, the role of a professional photographer hasn’t changed as much as the technology they use.
Although anyone can take a photo, not everyone understands the principles of photography enough to turn their skills into a career. There are a number of industries that use professional photographers with different varying skills, including:
- Food photography
- Wedding photography
- Event Photography
- Travel photography
- Technical photography
- Architectural photography
The advent of the internet means that almost every business needs images to display on their websites, whether that’s detailed images of the products they offer or staff photos to make their team recognizable. Any keen photographer that wants to make a career out of their expertise will benefit from using some of the most cutting-edge tools available, and there are a few that make life a lot easier:
Filters
Although it has become commonplace to see people using filters, most professional photographers aren’t using them to add cat ears, comedy hats, or unicorn horns. A good filter can turn a great picture into an eye-catching black-and-white image, a vibrant scene with intensified colors, or just allow you to take a picture at a slower shutter speed.
Photographers use both physical filters that sit on the lens of their camera and digital filters that can be used during the editing process. Both have their merits and can be used to great effect when composing, editing, and adapting photographs for commercial use.
File management
While there is a lot of creativity that goes into a good photograph, the practicalities of actually using them are also important. Many photographers send their images as PDF files to make them easy to process, but having hundreds of separate files can be unwieldy.
When clients hire photographers, it’s not just the images they are buying; it’s the service. Being able to combine PDFs into a single file can make it a lot easier to manage the transfer of images and goes a long way to demonstrating that you understand your client’s needs.
Editing software
Of course, every professional photographer needs good editing software, and although there are a few options out there, most industry professionals use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. They are a popular choice among photographers that want to conform to industry standards, but they both live up to their reputations with excellent interfaces and easy-to-use features.
Artificial Intelligence
The technology that seemed so outlandishly futuristic just a few years ago is now ready to help you enhance your images. Artificial intelligence is here in photo editing form to help you augment your images to create an improved version of the image you took based on the picture itself.
Specialist editing software
Depending on your area of expertise, you may want to use specialist tools designed to make your photos look great. For example, portrait photographers might want to smooth skin more easily, whereas sports photographers want to capture crisp images of subjects moving quickly.
There are tools to suit photographers with any specific needs and plenty of options to achieve the results they are after, whatever they might be.
If you want to sell your services to clients, you want to be able to show that you can offer them options and alternatives so that they have control over the editing process. Having tools that allow you to make instant tweaks to your images is one way to maximize the potential of every picture you take.
