Yet many don't realize the same procedure should hold true for photography. Yes, you can pay big bucks for a talented photographer and art-direct a photo shoot. But you're still not maximizing the power of your photos if you don't color-correct and finesse the original.

We won't go into the technical aspects of how to do that here. We're more interested in showing you the results. But here are three basic adjustments to consider:

The first step is to adjust the levels, or brightness and contrast, of the photo. This can make the biggest difference as shown in the examples here. Next comes adjusting the hue/saturation. Sometimes you want to change the color slightly or dramatically from the original. Or more often, the colors may look washed out and just need to be a bit more saturated. A little more advanced is adjusting curves which can fine-tune specific areas of the image. For example, in the ocean-view photo, the sand on the beach was too white in our opinion. It drew the eye directly to that area of the photo, which was not what we wanted. So adjusting the curves for that particular area makes the overall photo more balanced and pleasing.

Granted, a truly poor photo does have its limitations. You can't always make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Yet these examples show how it is possible to greatly improve ordinary photos.