A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos
Top Ten Reasons To Plan A Destination Wedding
You and the one you love are dreaming of an enchanted getaway, to do nothing less than tie the knot. Why should anyone want to go away, you .....
One problem I faced when starting out with digital photographyYou and the one you love are dreaming of an enchanted getaway, to do nothing less than tie the knot. Why should anyone want to go away, you .....
was how to touch up my raw digital images. Perhaps an image was
slightly dark, perhaps it had to be rotated or cropped. Digital
photos usually require some form of manipulation before final
output. So here's a short guide which I've compiled to help you
touch up your photos. Step 1: Start Up Your Image Editor The
first step, of course, is to fire up your favorite image editing
program. For beginners, it's best to get a program like Ulead
PhotoImpact. It's a great tool that allows you to achieve
professional photo effects using simple, easy-to-follow steps.
You may also want to check out my scoop of the top 5 beginner
photo editors for Windows. Open the picture you want to edit
within the program and save a backup copy.
Step 2: Remove Red Eye If you're taking photos of people,
chances are you may have taken a photo with red-eye problems.
What Makes The Best Wedding Anniversary Gift?
Choosing a wedding anniversary gift that wows your husband or wife can rate high on your .....
This is easily removed with image editing software. In PaintChoosing a wedding anniversary gift that wows your husband or wife can rate high on your .....
Shop Pro, select the Red-Eye Removal tool in the menu and voila,
the program does all the work for you. In Ulead PhotoImpact,
there's an equivalent tool called Remove Red Eye in the Tool
Panel. Step 3: Rotate and Crop If you've taken a photo in a
wrong orientation, it's easily corrected with little loss in
quality by using a rotate tool. You'll also want to do some
cropping of your photo to remove cluttered surroundings that
draw attention away from your subject. For example, I find
cropping very useful if my subject is occupying only the middle
portion of the photograph. Cut away the two sides of the picture
and you have a much more professional look. Step 4: Play with
Color Don't be afraid to experiment with colors. Image editing
programs put a lot of power in your hands. You can make the
leaves purple, change the entire photo to black and white, add a
sepia effect - almost anything you want. A good photo editing
program will have automatic color balance options to adjust
color defects in your pictures. Step 5: Blurring Effects
Sometimes I like to add a blurring effect to my photos. What you
can do here is to select areas of the photo which are
unimportant and blur them out. This will bring more attention to
the main subject of your photo. For example, if I had a picture
of a flower and I wanted to play down the details in the leaves
in background, I might add a blurring effect to the background.
Step 6: Sharpen Up Sharpening the image is the next step in the
photo touch up process. Contrary to popular belief, you can't
actually sharpen an out of focus image. What I typically do when
sharpening an image is to selectively sharpen. That is, I select
a part of the image, maybe a person's eyes and sharpen only that
area. Leave unimportant areas unsharpened. Step 7: Resize
Depending on your needs, you may want to resize your photo. If
you're emailing a picture to a friend, you'll want to resize the
picture down to a much smaller size. If you're printing the
Market Your Photography Business
Setting up your own photography business it easy, you dont need office space in can be done from your own home. .....
photo on a greeting card, you can scale down the image to theSetting up your own photography business it easy, you dont need office space in can be done from your own home. .....
size of a 4x6 print. Step 8: Save Your Work Ok, you're pretty
much done. Remember to save your work in the appropriate image
format. Use the large TIFF image format if you want to retain
all details for subsequent image editing. On the other hand, you
can use the JPEG image format if you want to just send the
picture via email or upload them to your website. Conclusion
Alrighty then! Now you know the secret to touching up and
preparing your raw digital photos for output. I'd say that not
all the above steps are truly necessary in a given situation.
Remember to use your discretion to see which is necessary. Don't
be afraid to experiment and learn - practice makes perfect when
it comes to touching up your photos.
About the author:
Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site at
www.basic-digital-photography.com. Read his tips on digital
photography and learn to shoot better photos with your digicam.