Article Advise

submitted: Aug 21st 2008 | by: DavidPeters | Total views: 1 | Word Count: 590 | |

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. Maybe some dirty spots had to be cleaned out and erased. 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 To get started, you must first choose your favorite image editing program. A program such as Ulead Photo Impact is best for beginners. It is an easy to use tool that still provides professional photo effects.

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 want to change the angle of your photograph, you can do this with little loss in quality by using the rotate tool. You may also need to crop your photo to remove cluttered or unnecessary background area that might take focus away from the subject of the photo. Doing this will create a much more professional look.

Step 4: Play with Color Editing software opens a whole world of color options to you. Experiment with color variations for a new and unique look for your image. You can make clouds purple, change your photo to black and white, add a rose hueany effect you might want. A good photo editing program should have an automatic color balance option to adjust color imperfections in your photos.

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 The next step in touching up a photo would be to sharpen as needed. While you cannot truly sharpen an out of focus image you can improve on it by selectively sharpening focal points. Sharpen a person's eyes for example and leave the rest of the image unsharpened.

Step 7: Resize You may need to resize your photo to suit your need. To e-mail your photo, resize to a smaller dimension. To print on a greeting card, you will want to resize your image to a 4x6 size.

Step 8: Save Your Work You're almost there. Now just remember to save your work in the proper image format. Use the larger TIFF image format to preserve all details for further image editing. If you just want to e-mail your pictures or upload them to your website, the JPEG image format would work best.

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.

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