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A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos
By Gary Hendricks
One problem I faced when starting out with digital photography 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. This is easily removed with image editing
software. In Paint 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.
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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 photo on a greeting
card, you can scale down the image to the 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.
© Gary Hendricks, 2005-
Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at www.basic-digital-photography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.