Editing your handmade product photos can be super frustrating, right? I mean there about a billion different tools, confusing terminology, and where do you even start? Photo editing programs are confusing with their oh so many different tools, and it can be extremely overwhelming to figure out just how to make your photo look awesome

But it really doesn't have to be. I’m about to give you three quick tips to make your

As a handmade seller DIYing your own product photos, you don't need to know all the things when it comes to photo editing. You just need to know a few, very important things. Once you master those things, editing is leaps and bounds faster, easier, and less stressful.

One of my students even used the word "exciting" once. Seriously!

Here are my top three photo editing tips that will help editing feel a little less stressful and a bit more enjoyable:

1. Adjust your levels.

Using the Levels tool, increase the brightness of your photo until just before you start to lose detail in the highlights. In simple terms, drag the right slider toward the left just until you start seeing part of your photo have areas of solid white pixels - then move it back a fraction. That helps you make sure your photo is bright enough, but without losing important detail. Then, do the same with the darks by dragging the left slider toward the right until the darks are pronounced. In Photoshop you can find the Levels tool at Image > Adjustments > Levels...

2. Tweak the white balance.

When it comes to product photography, making sure your colours are accurate is reeeeally important. If your colours are off, that pink scarf you sell may look more like a peach or a coral. If your customer thinks they're buying a peach or coral scarf, but instead receive a pink scarf, they will not be happy. "Brace yourself for the bad review and/or returned product" kind of not happy.

There are several different ways to adjust the white balance (aka the thing that makes sure your colours are accurate), but the simplest is to use the colour balance tool (in Photoshop it's under Image > Adjustments > Color Balance...). Move the sliders around just a little at first and see the impact it makes on your colours. Adjust them until your product's colours look accurate.

Note: White balance as a whole can be complicated, especially when you use a white background as the background may appear a slightly different shade in each. This tip is help get you started in understanding colour balance, but you may very well want to learn more about how to adjust colour balance later.

3. Embed a colour profile!

This is perhaps one of the most important things to do when editing photos. If you've ever uploaded a photo to Etsy or your website and noticed the colours look different after uploading, that's because you don't have a colour profile embedded with your image.

Think of the embedded colour profile as a post-it note of sorts attached to your photo. When you upload your photo to a website (like Etsy), the website will read the post-it note and apply just the right colour to your photo. Without that post-it note, the website might just mess those colours up.

For more info on why and how to embed a color profile, check out this blog post and this YouTube video.

And there you have it! My top 3 tips for editing your handmade product photos. See, editing isn’t so scary after all!