There is a lot to learn in the field of photography. Not only do you need to learn about how to take a good photograph, but you also need to learn about different photo editing and manipulation techniques as well. While some would say that if you know how to take a good photograph, then you shouldn’t need to know how to edit or manipulate a photo.

However, in some cases photo manipulation can help you create an interesting effect to your image, and it may also be helpful for the likes of commercial and branding purposes. You can gain a better understanding of what photo manipulation is by looking on free photo sharing websites, allowing you to view the work of other photographers who have experimented with manipulating their imagery.

Before you start editing your own images and learning how to manipulate and edit your images, why not read this handy guide so you can understand more about it all first?

What is photo manipulation?

Photo manipulation is typically known as a type of image editing. It involves using different techniques and editing approaches to create a fascinating effect to an image, usually to create a deception or illusion. On the other hand, editing an image can simply refer to correcting something or enhancing an element of the image.

Manipulating a photo can be done through digital or analogue means, and it is the art of building a new image by setting a number of others together in a seamless manner.

Photo manipulation and its use through history

Photo manipulation is not a new concept. This is the process of transforming or altering a photograph with different purposes and intentions, and this is something that we have been doing for many years now in the photography industry. Photos have been manipulated in many different ways by photographers, including scratching photographs during development, adding paint directly to the print, airbrushing, and retouching with ink.

Moreover, there were also different methods that were used to alter negatives, for example, hand colouring negatives for aesthetic purposes, bleaching negatives, piecing negatives together, and using double-exposure techniques.

What are the benefits of photo manipulation?

There are many benefits of photo manipulation, but it is important that you do not overdo it and that you only use this when appropriate. However, when this approach is used correctly, you can create beautiful images that serve a different purpose from what you may have intended when you first took the photograph or when you look at it in its current form.

You need high-quality editing software for image manipulation

There are a number of different software options that are available today when it comes to image manipulation. The most popular and well-known is certainly Adobe Photoshop. However, it is all about taking the time to discover the tool that you feel the most comfortable with.

We hope that this has helped you to get a better understanding of photo manipulation, what it is, and the different options that are available. Of course, there is a time and a place for photo manipulation, and understanding when to use such techniques is one of the most critical things that you can do.