Being an entrepreneur today calls for even more than just business management skills. You also need to become adept at storytelling. Use narrative tools and photo edits to tell a compelling story about yourself and your business. This will help you grow a community that connects with your brand story. A big part of telling this story is through photos and social media.
Finding a way to balance crafting high-quality digital content on top of your never-ending workflow can feel impossible. But we’re here to help you with that. These few basic tips should help you streamline your photo editing. This will land on an image collection that tells your brand’s story with pride.
Key Takeaways
- Entrepreneurs should leverage storytelling and photo edits to grow their brand community effectively.
- Using AI tools can streamline photo editing and help enhance original images without losing authenticity.
- Planning shoots and keeping the team energized ensures successful branding photography sessions.
- Organizing photo albums makes finding and editing images easier, avoiding the hassle of duplicates.
- Aim for authenticity in photo edits; subtle enhancements promote a genuine representation of your brand.
Table of Contents
Use AI Effectively
When it comes to images, getting a neat and aesthetic shot that looks effortless actually takes a lot of work. As an entrepreneur, leveraging the latest technology to your benefit can mean you get far more done with limited resources. This applies to editing images that tell your brand story, too. You can dramatically speed up the process of photo editing by utilizing advanced AI tools. Because it’s your original image, AI will simply help you elevate and edit, rather than add an artificial look.
Just remember that there’s a difference between relying on AI to create for you and using AI to finetune your own creations. For example, instead of trying to generate the perfect image, you can use AI tools to clean up any of your own shots to give them that professional edge. If you’ve got company shots with some messy desks in the background, you can use Photoshop to remove objects from your photos. This also allows you to be more careful when snapping photos around your workplace. Especially when taking behind-the-scenes footage, which is gold for telling an authentic, candid story of your brand.
Planning Is Half The Job Done
Speaking of workplace shots, while some photos are definitely going to be spontaneous, others should involve the work you do, which might mean you need to plan. Before any professional branding photoshoot, make a small checklist. List the things you need to make the shooting session a success. This would include good camera settings, the perfect lighting for the mood you want to set, props you may need, and whether you’re going for a certain theme or backdrop, amongst other things.
Also, consider the atmosphere and mood you want to portray through the photo series. If your team will be in for a long shooting day, keep their energy levels up and their mood bright. Use snacks, music, and a well-thought-out schedule for the day. This gives everyone ample time to rest and prepare between their photoshoot sessions.
Organise Your Photo Albums
This may seem like a basic task, but the moment you’re looking at 400 almost identical photographs, you realize you’ll have to sift through all of them to find that perfect shot. This is the one your whole team approved of earlier. The solution? During or just after the shoot, get straight into organizing your shoot album. You can develop a category or naming system. Move each product into a category or have files for close-ups and team photos in another.
You should also delete photos you know you won’t use straight away to help declutter. This will make the editing job far easier. Additionally, you may even end up with duplicates while organizing your images. Things get copied rather than moved. There are mobile or desktop apps you can use to find and delete duplicate photos. This saves you from going through all your images just to remove duplicates.
Photo Edits like a Pro
Despite the intimidating aspect of photography being an art, editing photos doesn’t have to be complicated; it’s really about a few simple tweaks that can make a big difference. In Photoshop or your image editing platform of choice, start by adjusting the brightness or exposure. Get the overall lighting right, then play with contrast to make the photo look sharper or softer. Fixing highlights and shadows helps bring back details in really bright or dark areas. Adjust the whites and blacks to make the picture feel more balanced.
For color, you can boost saturation or vibrance to make tones pop and use temperature or tint to warm up or cool down the image. Sharpening and clarity can make textures stand out, and noise reduction helps smooth out any grainy spots, especially in night shots.
Don’t forget cropping and rotating to frame the photo nicely. If colors look a bit off, a quick white balance adjustment can fix that, too.
Less Is More
Finally, remember that authenticity is the key to a successful story, especially on social media. Some people leave their images entirely raw, but true pros make their shots feel organic and low-effort. They hide any evidence of editing. You should aim to softly elevate your images, not make any dramatic changes that take away the soul behind the shot.
Similarly, when it comes to product shots, images need to look as close to the real thing as possible. You may feel the need to tweak certain things on the product itself. However, enhancing the images too much can make them feel inauthentic. It can even be misleading. Instead, always run the route of letting your product and service quality speak for itself. After all, if you stand by your company’s offerings, minimal tweaks would be needed to make them presentation-worthy.
Final Thoughts
From behind-the-scenes footage to showing off sneak peeks of your new products, taking pictures is one of the most powerful ways to give people a glimpse into your business. Maintaining the methods we’ve outlined above can help you make sure your company’s media assets consistently meld with your branding. They are always well-presented to share with your wider network.
Just take the time to find your brand’s voice and stick to that quality when you find it. That’s how you honor your company story. You get to add ‘storytelling’ and thoughtful photo edits to your ever-growing list of skills as a modern-day entrepreneur.
