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  • HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List ## Photo Editing for Beginners — Brent Call

    Good news up front: this is the cheapest supply list you'll ever get from a community-ed class. Photo editing is mostly free. Honestly, most of what you need you already own. Here's what actually helps, sorted so you know what's required and what's just nice.

    ---

    The Budget Tier (this is really all you need)

    A phone or laptop with a camera roll on it. Doesn't matter what brand. If you can take pictures and look at them, you're set.

    A free editing app. I use Snapseed, you don't have to. Google Photos has a built-in editor too and it's fine for the basics we're covering week one. Download whichever one you want before class if you can, but if you show up without it, we'll get it installed in the first ten minutes. No excuse to wait on this one, it's free and it's small.

    A handful of your own "bad" photos. This is the actual homework. Dig up five or six photos on your phone that bug you. Too dark, too blue, crooked, cluttered edges, whatever. We're going to fix real problems, not staged ones. Bring the blue-picture ones especially (you'll know what I mean by week two, that's the white balance lesson).

    A notebook or a note on your phone. For the two or three actual rules I'll give you. There aren't many. Most of this class is muscle memory, not memorization.

    That's it. That's the whole budget tier. If you've got those four things you can do everything we cover in this course.

    ---

    Nice-to-Have Tier (not required, don't feel behind if you skip these)

    A laptop instead of just a phone. Bigger screen makes it easier to see what you're actually doing to a photo, especially cropping. Not necessary. I did my first year of this on a phone screen and it was fine, just squintier.

    A cheap pair of reading glasses if you're my age. I keep a pair in my truck, a pair by my chair, and I still can't find one when I need it. If you're over fifty and haven't accepted this yet, buy a three-pack. Cheap ones from Costco work as well as the expensive ones, in my experience.

    External storage (a cheap flash drive or an external hard drive). Only if you want to start actually organizing your photos, which, full disclosure, I do not do well myself. Mine are scattered across my phone and two different drives and I'm the last person who should lecture you on this. If you want to get ahead of the mess I never solved, a $20 flash drive from Costco is plenty for now.

    A second free app, just to compare. Lightroom has a free mobile version with more sliders than you'll need starting out. Worth poking at in month two, not week one. Don't pay for anything yet. You don't need to. Maybe you never will.

    ---

    Shopping Notes

    You genuinely don't need to make a special trip for this class. If you're already doing a Costco or Macey's run and want to grab reading glasses or a flash drive while you're there, fine, but don't go out of your way. The one thing to actually do before class is get that free app downloaded and make sure you can find your camera roll without hunting for it. That's the whole prep.

    See you in class. Bring your worst photos. 😊

  • HandoutHandout 2: Photo Editing Cheat Sheet

    Handout 2: Photo Editing Cheat Sheet

    Print this out, stick it by your computer, forget half of it, come back to it. That's how I use mine. Honestly, you don't need to memorize any of this. Just know it's here.

    ---

    The Order I Do Things In

    I don't do these in a fixed order every time, but this is close to it:

    1. Crop first. Cut out the junk before you fix anything else.
    2. Exposure/brightness — is it too dark or too bright overall?
    3. White balance — does everything look a little blue or a little orange that shouldn't?
    4. Contrast — small bump, usually. Not a big one.
    5. Look again with fresh eyes. Close the app if you can. Come back in a minute.

    That last step matters more than people think. I've ruined more photos by not stepping away than by any actual editing mistake.

    ---

    Crop

    • The single most powerful edit and the most underused. Free, instant, hard to mess up badly.
    • Cutting out a parking lot, a stray elbow, or a bunch of empty wall does more than any slider.
    • Rule of thirds if you want one: put the interesting thing off-center, roughly a third of the way in from an edge. Not a law. A decent starting habit.
    • When in doubt, crop tighter than feels natural. You can always crop less next time.

    Exposure / Brightness

    • This fixes the "too dark, can't see anything" problem or the "blown out white" problem.
    • Small moves. If the slider goes from -100 to +100, you'll usually want something between 10 and 30 in either direction, not the extremes.
    • Garage light, indoor light, evening light: usually needs brightening. Do it a little at a time.

    White Balance ("the blue-picture problem")

    • If your photo looks blue-gray or a weird orange and you didn't touch anything else, this is your problem.
    • Most apps have an "auto" white balance button. Try it first. Honestly it's right more than it's wrong.
    • If auto doesn't fix it, there's usually a warm/cool slider. Warm = more orange/yellow. Cool = more blue. Nudge it toward what looks natural to your eye, not what looks perfect on a screen with bad glare (which, at this elevation with this sun, is most screens most of the time).

    Contrast

    • Makes darks darker and lights lighter. Makes a flat-looking photo feel like it has some depth.
    • This is the one people overdo the most. A little contrast reads as "someone edited this on purpose." A lot of contrast reads as "someone found the sliders and got excited."
    • I'd rather you under-do contrast than over-do it. That's a preference, not a rule, but it's a strong one.

    Saturation (color intensity)

    • Turns colors up or down. Tulips redder, grass greener, that sort of thing.
    • Use sparingly. Real colors, done honestly, usually look better than cranked-up ones. I learned this the hard way with an actual flower bed that was already the color I thought I was "fixing."

    ---

    Things I Don't Cover in This Class

    Layers, masks, removing objects from a photo, any of the AI cleanup tools. They exist. I've poked at a couple and gotten frustrated and quit. That's honest, not modest. This class stops at "make a decent photo better," not "replace the sky."

    ---

    The Two Rules I Actually Believe In

    Change one thing at a time, then look again. Stack ten edits and you can't tell which one helped or which one wrecked it.

    Undo is not failure. If an edit's too much, back it off or throw it out entirely. That's not admitting defeat, that's the whole method. Sanding a board works the same way. (That's a woodworking thing. Back to the photo.)

    ---

    Bring your own phone or laptop and your own photos to class. Fixing your actual blue-picture problem beats fixing mine. 😊

  • WorksheetHandout 3: Your Editing Checklist

    Handout 3: Your Editing Checklist

    Print this out and bring it to class. Work through it on one of your own photos, the actual blue-picture one you've been meaning to fix, not a perfect one. This is meant to get marked up, so write on it.

    ---

    Before You Touch Anything

    • [ ] Pick a photo that actually bugs you. Not a great one. A real one.
    • [ ] Look at it for ten seconds before you open the app. What's the actual problem? Circle one:

    Too dark    Too blue/gray (white balance)    Junk on the edges (needs a crop)    Flat/lifeless (contrast)    Something else: ___________

    Honestly, most photos have one main problem, not five. Find the one.

    ---

    The Crop (Do This First)

    • [ ] Cut out anything on the edges that isn't the point of the photo. Parking lot, cord, half a stranger, doesn't matter.
    • [ ] Ask: if I moved in closer with my body, would this look better? Crop like that.
    • [ ] Straighten it if the horizon or a wall is tilted.

    The crop is free, it's fast, and it's the one edit almost nobody uses enough. I'll say that in class too, so you're not surprised.

    ---

    One Adjustment at a Time

    Make one change below. Then close the app. Walk away for a minute, get water, whatever. Come back and look with fresh eyes before you touch the next one.

    • [ ] Exposure — brighten or darken until it looks like what you actually saw
    • [ ] White balance — fix the blue-picture problem (indoor shots especially)
    • [ ] Contrast — small bump only, this is where people overdo it
    • [ ] Saturation — if you touch this at all, barely

    After each one, ask yourself: better, or just different? If you can't tell, that's usually your answer. Undo it.

    ---

    The Overdo Check

    • [ ] Does this photo look like something happened to it, or does it just look like a good photo?

    If someone would look at it and think "nice picture," you're done. If they'd think "what did you do to this," back off one step. That's not a rule so much as a thing I've learned the hard way. More than once. 😊

    ---

    Before You Save

    • [ ] Compare it side by side with the original if your app lets you
    • [ ] Ask: would I want this printed and stuck on the fridge?
    • [ ] If you're not sure, that's fine. Save both versions. Decide tomorrow.

    ---

    Notes / What I Actually Changed

    Use this space to write down what you did, in plain words. Not for anybody else, for you, so next time you remember what worked.

    ```

    ```

    ---

    One reminder before we move on: undo is not failure. It's the whole method. If you go too far and back off, that's not a mistake, that's the process working. I do it on every single edit and I've been doing this a few years now.

  • HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Every one of these problems showed up in my own photos before I knew what to call them. If you're stuck on something, it's probably on this list. Fix, close the app, look again with fresh eyes. That's the whole method.

    ---

    1. The whole photo looks blue-gray, especially indoors. This is the blue-picture problem. It's a white balance issue, meaning your phone guessed wrong about the light in the room. Look for a white balance or "warmth" slider and nudge it toward orange until whites look like whites again, not like a hospital hallway.

    2. Everything's too dark and you can't see detail. Bump the exposure or brightness slider up. Go slower than feels natural. I brightened a cedar board once until it looked like the surface of the sun, walked away happy, came back an hour later horrified. Small moves, then close the app and look again.

    3. The subject is a silhouette because there's a bright window or sky behind them. Jeffrey brought me a photo of a shelf he built, totally backlit, you couldn't see the shelf at all. Look for a "shadows" slider (different from exposure) and bring it up. That recovers detail in the dark parts without blowing out what's already bright. Took about ninety seconds.

    4. The photo feels flat, kind of dull and gray. Try contrast, just a little. This is the "pop" fix everybody asks for (I still flinch at that word, but fine, it's what people mean). A small bump, not a big one.

    5. There's a bunch of junk on the edges, a parking lot, a garage door, somebody's elbow. Crop it out. This is the most powerful edit there is and honestly nobody uses it enough. Free, instant, hard to overdo. Cut in until the photo is just the thing you actually wanted to photograph.

    6. You made an edit and now it looks worse, but you can't tell why. You probably stacked too many changes at once. Undo everything and start over with one adjustment at a time. Change one thing, close the app, come back with fresh eyes. Undo isn't failure, it's the whole method, same as sanding: you go too far, you back off, you try again.

    7. You tried to sharpen an old or blurry photo and now it looks like a bad photocopy. Oversharpening does this. I did it to an old scanned photo of my parents and made it worse for a solid hour before I gave up and did almost nothing. Sometimes the best edit is the one you don't make. Back off the sharpening slider most of the way, or just undo it.

    8. The photo looks fine on your phone but weird everywhere else. Screens vary a lot, and honestly I don't have a great fix for this one beyond checking it on a second device if you have one. Don't chase perfection on a single screen.

    9. You've made ten small adjustments and can't tell which ones helped. Start over. One edit at a time, and actually look between each one. This is the mistake I see most in class. People get excited, stack everything, and lose the thread.

    10. You edited something and it's technically "better" but it doesn't feel like the real photo anymore. This one's worth sitting with. I once color-corrected Debra's tulips for forty minutes before realizing they really were that orange, the photo was accurate the whole time. If your gut says you've overcorrected, you probably have. Pull back toward less. Most photos need less editing than people think, not more.

    ---

    If none of this covers your problem, bring it to class and we'll look at it together. That's genuinely the fastest way through most of these. 😊

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay wait, say that part again, because I don't think I've ever heard "spreadsheet tab" used as a punchline before.

    BRENT: It's true! I've got one tab for who's borrowed what tool, and one tab for photos people want fixed. Anthony's daughter's wedding pictures have been on there since, honestly, I don't want to say how long.

    JESS: How long.

    BRENT: A while. I finish maybe half of what I start, that's just accurate about me. Anyway. That's not what we're here for.

    JESS: No, it's actually a perfect place to start. Hi, everybody, this is the podcast that goes along with Photo Editing for Beginners here at Utah Community Learning, I'm Jess, I produce these, and this is Brent, who's teaching the class.

    BRENT: Hi. I'm not a photographer, I want to say that up front so nobody's disappointed later.

    JESS: He says this every time, I want the listeners to know.

    BRENT: Because it's important! I take pictures of tomato plants and half-built shelves and router setups. I don't compose anything on purpose. What I do is fix stuff after the fact, on my phone, for free, and it turns out that's a whole skill people want to learn.

    JESS: Tell the drill story. That one's my favorite.

    BRENT: Okay, so my neighbor Jeffrey, two doors down, borrows my drill pretty regular. He builds a shelf, sends me a picture of the finished thing, and it's backlit against his window so bad you can't see the shelf at all. Just a black rectangle and some window glare.

    JESS: Rough.

    BRENT: I open it up in the free app I use, brighten the exposure, crop out the window entirely, and in about ninety seconds it's a normal photo of a nice shelf. Jeffrey couldn't believe it was the same picture. And that's honestly the moment I thought, other people would want to know how to do this. It's not hard. It's just nobody ever showed them.

    JESS: And that's basically the whole class, right? Not becoming a photographer, just fixing what's already there.

    BRENT: That's it exactly. Most of what people call "editing" is really just a crop and an exposure fix. Cutting out the junk on the edges and making the picture as bright as your eye already knows it should be. That's like eighty percent of it.

    JESS: Okay, give the podcast listeners something they can use tonight, before they even come to a class.

    BRENT: Sure. Here's the one thing. Open a photo on your phone, any photo, and just crop it. Cut out whatever's on the edges that doesn't need to be there, a bit of ceiling, somebody's elbow, the parking lot in the background. Don't touch anything else. Just crop, and look at it again.

    JESS: That's it?

    BRENT: That's it. Crop is free, it's instant, and it's the one edit almost nobody uses enough. I tell people in class, half of "fixing" a photo is just deciding what doesn't need to be in it anymore.

    JESS: I did that with a picture of my kid's birthday cake last week and it was a genuinely different photo.

    BRENT: See, that's the whole trick. People think editing means sliders and filters and all that. Honestly, most photos need less than people think, not more. You crank ten things and you can't tell what actually helped. I always say, change one thing, close the app, come back later with fresh eyes. Works for the cedar bench I'm supposedly building for the ward entryway too. Or it would, if I ever closed the app and walked away from it long enough to get back out to the garage.

    JESS: How's the bench coming, by the way.

    BRENT: Debra would tell you it's not. That's a different story for a different podcast.

    JESS: Fair. Okay, so next session, what are we covering.

    BRENT: Next time we get into what I call the blue-picture problem. Anybody who's taken a photo indoors and had it come out this sort of blue-gray, washed out, not what your eye saw at all. There's a real reason that happens and a real fix for it, it's called white balance, and once you know the word it stops being mysterious.

    JESS: I've definitely had the blue-picture problem and never known what to call it.

    BRENT: Everybody has. It took me three tries and a lot of muttering to figure it out myself, so nobody's behind. Bring a photo that does that to you, we'll fix it together.

    JESS: Love it. This has been episode one, Photo Editing for Beginners, thanks Brent.

    BRENT: Thanks for having me. Go crop something. 😊

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay but did it actually look like the surface of the sun, or are you exaggerating for the podcast?

    BRENT: No, I'm not exaggerating. It was a cedar board, garage light was bad, so I cranked the exposure slider all the way up feeling very pleased with myself. Looked great for about an hour.

    JESS: And then?

    BRENT: Came back and it was just... white. Blown out completely. Like I'd photographed a light bulb, not a board.

    JESS: This is episode two, by the way, for anyone just joining us. Photo Editing for Beginners, week two recap. Brent, last week was exposure and cropping, right?

    BRENT: Right. And that board is basically why I teach it the way I do now. Make one edit, close the app, walk away, come back with fresh eyes. Because in the moment you can't tell if you've fixed something or ruined it. Your eyes get tired, or excited, same problem really.

    JESS: So how'd the actual class go this week. Anybody have a board moment?

    BRENT: A couple, honestly, and that's fine, that's the whole point. Nobody's supposed to nail it first try. One woman had a photo of her grandkids at Sundance, kind of dark, and she brightened it up nice and then kept going, and going, and I had to gently say, hey, look at it again in a minute, see how you feel.

    JESS: The sanding thing.

    BRENT: The sanding thing. You go a little far, you back off, that's not failure, that's literally the method. Undo is not a consolation prize.

    JESS: I want to tell the tulip story but I feel like you've told that one already.

    BRENT: I have, been saving a new one for you actually. So a while back I was working on the cedar bench for the ward entryway, big project, took forever. I'm in the shop, half done, shop light's terrible, and I take a picture to send Debra a progress update. Kind of a "look, it's coming along" text.

    JESS: Sure.

    BRENT: So I brighten the shop light in the photo, clean it up a little, honestly just habit at that point, and I send it off. She texts back "looks great, when's it DONE" with the heart emoji.

    JESS: Oh no.

    BRENT: The bench was not that close to done. I had made the photo more finished than the actual bench. I'd edited my own progress report into a lie, basically, by accident.

    JESS: That's very funny.

    BRENT: It's very funny and also slightly convicting, because it tells you how much a good edit changes what people believe about a thing. Which is powerful when you're making a photo book of the family reunion, and it's a problem when you're trying to convince your wife you're further along than you are.

    JESS: Okay, for someone listening who isn't in the class, who's not gonna come down to the community center, what's one thing they could try tonight on their own phone.

    BRENT: Crop first. Before you touch brightness or color or any of that. Just crop out the junk on the edges, the parking lot, the extra wall, whatever's not the point of the picture. It's free, it's instant, and honestly it does more work than people give it credit for. Half of "fixing" a photo is just cutting out what shouldn't be in there.

    JESS: That's it? That's the whole tip?

    BRENT: That's most of it. People want to jump straight to sliders and filters and I get it, that's the fun part, but the crop is doing the heavy lifting nine times out of ten. Try it on one photo tonight. Just one. See if it looks like somebody meant to take it.

    JESS: I like that phrase.

    BRENT: It's the whole reason I got into this, honestly. Somebody meant to take it.

    JESS: Alright, so next session, what are we covering.

    BRENT: White balance. The blue-picture problem.

    JESS: Explain that for people who haven't heard you call it that yet.

    BRENT: So indoors, under regular house lights, your phone camera sometimes reads everything with this blue-gray cast, especially whites. Looks kind of sickly. Took me three tries and a lot of muttering at my tomato harvest photos before I understood what was actually happening. We'll fix that next week, it's a quick one once you see it.

    JESS: Bring a photo that's got the blue-picture problem.

    BRENT: Everybody's got one. Check your phone, I guarantee it.

    JESS: Alright. That's episode two. Thanks Brent.

    BRENT: Thanks Jess. Go crop something. 😊

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay but did it actually work, or did you just tell everyone it worked?

    BRENT: No, it worked. That's the whole story. That's why I'm telling it.

    JESS: Okay, back up, for people just hitting play. What are we talking about.

    BRENT: Sunday School. I was using a phone photo on the projector, some picture I'd taken of a lesson handout, and the exposure was so dark you literally could not see it. Room full of adults just squinting at a black rectangle.

    JESS: A rough moment.

    BRENT: A rough moment. So I just, right there, live, pulled it up and fixed the exposure in about ten seconds. Slid it up, everybody could suddenly see the thing. And I said, "see, that's the whole class right there." Half joking.

    JESS: And then?

    BRENT: And then half the room asked me about it afterward. Like actually came up and said, how'd you do that, can you show me. And I thought, huh. Maybe there's a class in this.

    JESS: So this podcast is technically Sunday School's fault.

    BRENT: Honestly, yeah, a little bit.

    JESS: I love that. Okay, so speaking of exposure fixes, that's basically what session three was, right? Exposure and white balance.

    BRENT: Right, the two big ones. Exposure is just how bright or dark the photo is overall. White balance is the color temperature thing, whether it looks too orange or too blue.

    JESS: The blue-picture problem.

    BRENT: The blue-picture problem, yes, you've been listening. That's what I call it because that's what people see before they know the word for it. You take a picture inside under regular lights, and everything looks a little blue-gray and sad, like the room is having a bad day. And it's not the room, it's the camera guessing wrong about the light.

    JESS: And the fix is just a slider.

    BRENT: It's a slider, usually, in every free app I've ever used. Warm it up a touch, it looks normal again. Took me three tries to actually understand what I was doing the first time, I was just muttering at my phone in the garage.

    JESS: Okay, give me the one tip. Somebody's listening on their lunch break, they're never taking the class, what do they do right now.

    BRENT: Make one edit and then close the app.

    JESS: That's it?

    BRENT: That's it. Don't stack ten sliders and then wonder which one helped. Brighten the photo a little, or warm it up a little, one thing, then actually close out of the editor and come back to it in a minute. Fresh eyes catch stuff tired eyes miss.

    JESS: This is the sun-photo thing again, isn't it.

    BRENT: (laughs) It's a little bit the sun-photo thing again. First exposure edit I ever did, cedar board, bad garage light, I brightened it so much it looked like I'd photographed the actual sun. Walked away pleased with myself. Came back an hour later just horrified.

    JESS: So now you build in the walk-away.

    BRENT: Now I build in the walk-away. One edit, close it, look again. It's not a rule I made up to sound wise, I just kept getting burned otherwise.

    JESS: Okay, and the honest confession portion of the show. Anything from this week's class you want to admit to?

    BRENT: Somebody asked me about white balance on scanned old photos, the really old ones, and I had to say, look, that's a whole different animal, I mess those up more than I fix them. I oversharpened one of my own parents' photos once trying to save it and it ended up looking like a bad copy machine job. Undid the whole thing. Did almost nothing to it in the end.

    JESS: Sometimes the edit is no edit.

    BRENT: Sometimes the edit is no edit. That one took me a while to accept.

    JESS: Alright. Next session, what are we doing.

    BRENT: Cropping. Which honestly, I probably should've done first, it's the most powerful edit there is and almost nobody uses it enough. We're going to just take a stack of everybody's phone photos and cut the junk out of the edges. Parking lots, extra sky, whatever. It's free, it's instant, and it makes people look like they meant to take the picture.

    JESS: That's a good line.

    BRENT: It's true though. Bring your actual photos, not mine. I'd rather fix your blue-picture problem than show you my tomatoes again.

    JESS: Noted, no more tomatoes.

    BRENT: One more tomato slide, maybe. For old time's sake. 😊

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