One of the many challenges to establishing a brand’s online presence is the constant need for high-quality social media content. Sure, you can throw some Shutterstock images online and hope for the best, but it isn’t difficult to dramatically improve the quality of your content if you’re willing to learn some simple Photoshop techniques and tricks.
Let’s start with gradient maps. This tool is a quick way to add color to any photo or asset. Also, if your brand has a specific color palette, this is an easy way to customize your social media content.
Let’s start with an image of a dog wearing sunglasses.
Go to the menu bar at the top of your screen and select Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Gradient Map (below).
Next, select the colors you want to apply to your image. You’ll see Photoshop has color combinations built in, but you can easily select any colors you like and “map” them to the image.
Here we see the finished product!
Easy!
Another way to quickly boost the visual appeal of an image is to add a simple branding element, like a border. Let’s say we have a square image like below.
Let’s create a white rectangle and center it over the image.
Now go to the menu bar and select Layer -> Rasterize -> Layer.
This last step allows you to erase a portion of the rectangle. I like to erase the portion of the rectangle that covers the focus of the image. This will give it some nice depth.
Whoa! It looks like the dog is *in front* of the rectangle. In no time, we’ve added a simple element to our image that will, hopefully, stand out online.
This information is not a technique or a tip just a reminder that Typekit is your friend. If you have a Photoshop subscription, that means you have access to Typekit, a site where you can browse thousands of high-quality fonts and download many of them for free.
Let’s say we have an image that involves type like below.
Now, Helvetica is a nice font with a wide range of practical applications. But it’s not very exciting. If you’ve never explored Typekit before, go to the menu bar and select Type -> Add Fonts from Typekit.
You can spend time experimenting with different fonts, but it doesn’t take long to find something that makes our image a little more interesting.
I hope the information above is helpful to anyone who wants to boost the quality of their content. Once you get comfortable with a few simple techniques, it’s not difficult to stack them up and get some really great results. For more questions about Socialfly’s creative capabilities, contact us today!
