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5 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid When Editing Your Photos

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journal

When I started learning about photography, I did everything by reading/watching tutorials on the internet, practicing it, and trying things out. This included editing.

And boy, did I make many photo-editing mistakes in the past.

My editing style has evolved over the years. You can see that during my early days, I was a big fan of yellow filters, and I seemed to struggle with enhancing my photos while keeping it look natural. I did everything too much. Too much contrast, too much saturation, too much… editing.

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalToo much yellow filter (taken in Bruges, 2012).

I never want to see those images I took in my early days now, as they make me cringe and wonder in disbelief, ‘Was I actually blind? How could I not see how unnatural and bad all these photos look?’

So I’m going to share with you a few rookie mistakes that I did (some of these are still common now, from my observation). These are pretty basic, so if you’re more experienced in photography, you probably won’t find this very useful. But if you’re just starting, hop on!

5 photo-editing mistakes to avoid:

1. Overexposing the photos

Many people like bright, clean look for their photos, maybe with the colors washed out a bit. While the style and tone of your editing style are very much up to you, be careful when tuning up the exposure meter in your editing app/software. When you brighten your photo too much, you risk losing the intricate details in the photo.

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalI overexposed the photo too much in the editing process. The white areas in the photos are too bright, the sky is jarringly white without details, and the lady’s face blends into the truck wall as the overexposure makes the photos lose the details and dimension (photo taken in Penzance, 2013).

The same thing applies when you take photos. It’s always better to take underexposed (i.e. slightly darker) photos rather than overexposed, as it’s always easier to brighten your photos rather than darkening them. And also, this way, you get to keep the details and quality of the photos.

2. Bumping up the saturation too much

I made this mistake at some point during my early years of learning photography. I wanted to make the ocean look bluer, the sunset more yellow, or the fruits more luscious. The more the colors pop out, the better, I thought.

As you can imagine, the results were the opposite. Instead of looking better, they looked unnatural and ridiculous. I took decent pictures (if I may say so myself), but I ruined them in the editing process.

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalYou can see the red and blue colours in the playground look fake, and the leaves are unnaturally green (photo taken in Batu Hijau, 2012).

Unless you’re doing a conceptual photography or doing something whimsical and imaginative, be sensible when playing with the saturation and vibrance. Subjects can look duller in photos, so if you want to make them look better, edit them so they look like how they do in reality.

3. Adding too much contrast, too much sharpening, too much shadows-lightening, etc.

This is similar to the previous point, and I used to be guilty of this as well. When I look at my photos from a few years ago, I’ll cringe and look away. It’s clear I added too much contrast and oversharpened my images to make them look more interesting (they didn’t; they looked amateurish instead).

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalThis one is obvious. It would look more natural (and much better) if I’d toned down the contrast and sharpening (photo taken in Sumbawa, 2012).

Just like with everything else in editing, the key is to not overdo it. You want to make your images look realistically stunning, not like somebody went rampant on the keyboard during the editing process.

4. Not straightening lines

I’ll admit, this is one of my pet peeves. I always want to scream inside when I see a potentially good image with crooked lines just because the photographer didn’t bother to fix it. Think of a wonky horizon, askew buildings, etc. You get the gist. These photos could be SO much better if only the photographer spent 1 minute rotating it a bit to straighten the lines.

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalThe one thing I’ve got right since the beginning is straightening lines (photo taken in Pulau Keramat, 2012).

If you’ve got lines in your photo, make sure they’re straight (unless you intentionally want to make them look wonky). Trust me, this little tip makes a huge difference.

5. Blurring things out unsmoothly

Another mistake I did, back when I didn’t have a lens with wide aperture but was desperate to have some bokeh effect in my photos. Adobe Photoshop had this feature called ‘lens blur’, so I used it like a maniac.

photo-editing mistakes to avoid - her little journalThe blur in this photo is a bit more subtle (I was trying to look for photos with worse blur effect but couldn’t find any), but you can see I was trying to keep the sign on focus while blurring everything else (photo taken in Prague, 2012).

Blurring things out is okay. I get that it’s a really nice effect that can bring the focus to the subject. But when you blur your photos in the editing process (rather than getting the effect from the lens), remember that blur added with editing tools can look fake, and it’s easy to spot that. It’s a hard balance to strike between adding the blur and keeping the photo look natural.

Now I tend to shy away from blurring things out with editing tools, so that would be my suggestion. But if you really want to, do it lightly (and be thorough as not to miss those tiny spots). When you can’t be bothered to do that, I’d say it’s best to avoid it altogether (or better yet, invest in a good prime lens, it’s worth it!).


When it comes to editing, just remember that you want to enhance the images, not transform them into something unregonizable. Moderation is the key, so don’t go overboard when playing with all the editing features.

What photo-editing mistakes have you made in the past?

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12 Comments

  • Reply nyonyawhitfield

    oh I’ve made all these mistakes in the past hahahaha not that I am perfect today but sure do cringe when I look back at some old edited photos 😂

    January 31, 2018 at 1:53 pm
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      It’s amazing (and cringey) to see how much we’ve learned and changed through the old photos 😀

      February 5, 2018 at 6:35 pm
  • Reply dita

    I tend to crop too tight or including too much noises in the background 🙂
    And yes, all of the above.

    January 31, 2018 at 10:42 pm
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      Ah yes, that too! I was certainly guilty of this in my early days 😀

      February 5, 2018 at 6:36 pm
  • Reply Anish Kuriakose

    Really, really info 😀

    February 6, 2018 at 5:37 am
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      Thanks! 😀

      February 7, 2018 at 1:01 pm
  • Reply Mira

    waaah, ini aku banget nih, dulu suka banget foto miring2. sekarang, rasanya gateeeel banget tiap liat foto yg horizonnya miring. tiap ngedit foto otomatis jadi hal yang pertama dibenerin.
    kayaknya ngedit tone foto jadi kuning banget itu sempet hits ya pada jamannya, dulu tiap ngedit juga begituuu

    February 12, 2018 at 7:17 am
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      Iyaa gatel yaa liat foto miring. Apalagi kalo fotonya sebenernya bagus, duh sayang banget.

      Entah kenapa dulu tone kuning itu rasanya keren, padahal kalo diliat sekarang lumayan bikin sakit mata. Ternyata ga cuma aku aja ya 😀

      February 13, 2018 at 5:19 pm
  • Reply Justin

    Aku paling sering dulu adalah asal jepret. Mau lurus mau miring bodo amat hahaha dan yg penting warnanya kontras. Semakin bold semakin oke wkwk padahal mah ya ganggu juga liatnya

    March 11, 2018 at 1:14 pm
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      Hahaha yang penting belajar yaa. Aku juga liat hasil foto jaman dulu suka jadi malu sendiri, tapi yang penting sekarang udah belajar dan berkembang dikit lah skill fotonya 😀

      March 12, 2018 at 1:32 pm
  • Reply Semangatmuda

    Hahaha bener banget mbak, bikin malu rasanya lihat jepretan sendiri di jaman saturation-nya nabok mata. Entah kenapa namanya pemula seringkali penyakitnya samaan aja hehe

    April 11, 2018 at 4:31 am
    • Reply Dixiezetha

      Kayaknya itu kesalahan yang lumayan sering dibuat pemula yaa. Iya bener, malu sekarang liatnya. Tapi gapapa, yang penting udah belajar dari kesalahan 😀

      April 20, 2018 at 9:40 pm

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