Digital photography is a substantial advance over film photography because it gives you so much more control over the final image

Digital photography is a substantial advance over film photography because it gives you so much more control over the final image. But it takes some patience. There are many programs available to help you edit your photos. Your digital camera came with a basic editing program – that was the CD that you didn’t pay much attention to.

There are also many 3^rd party programs available as well that are more powerful and maybe easier to use.

Look on the Internet under: free digital imaging software. You’ll find:

Picasa (from Google)
GIMP
Serif PhotoPlus
Pixia
Paint.net
And a lot of others

There is software available from on line photo producers such as: Snapfish.com

And finally there is the stuff you have to pay for from $50 to $500 depending on how sophisticated you want to be. Some names: Roxio, Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS.

So let’s pick one – a free one – and edit some photos.

First step.... down load Picasa from Google by searching for it by name on the Internet. Follow the steps for downloading and soon you are ready to go.

The secret to good photography is to think before you shoot so you editing will be minimal but that’s not always possible and the result is an image that needs work.

CROP AN IMAGE

Let’s inspect this photo to see how we can improve it:

It’s OK the way it is but if we cropped some of the non essential and distracting elements we will wind up with a better photo.

· Load Picasa and find the photo – it’s in a folder somewhere on the left side of the screen

· Click on the image that you want to work on. This one needs to be cropped in order to focus attention on the girls. Click on CROP, and then select MANUAL. Go to the image and with your mouse select the FINAL image that you want. If you make a mistake just hit ESC and it will get you to the original image. Once you have cropped the image, click on PREVIEW to double check it. If it’s OK then click on APPLY.

· Then click on RETURN TO LIBRARY and you’ll see that the new image is there waiting for you. The go to FILE, SAVE to assure you have retained the changes.

ELIMINATING REDEYE

Let’s inspect another image to see how to improve it:

Here you can see Haley has the dreaded redeye. This occurs when the subject’s iris is wide open, the light from the flash bounces off the rear of the eye and is reflected into the camera. To avoid this turn on the camera’s redeye reduction feature, increase the light in the rooms or correct it with software. Here’s how:

· Load Picasa and find the photo – it’s in a folder somewhere on the left side of the screen

· Click on the image that you want to work on.

· Click on REDEYE and then trace the eyes that need fixing. The software does the rest. When we are done, Haley’s eyes have the same sparkle as her dad’s.

· Click on APPLY to save those changes.

· Then click on RETURN TO LIBRARY and you’ll see that the new image is there waiting for you. The go to FILE, SAVE to assure you have retained the changes.

ADJUSTING COLOR OF AN IMAGE

The magic isn’t over yet. Another easy correction that you can make is to adjust the color, the saturation of the image. Take a look at this image.

The colors of this Chinese temple are brilliant in real life but here they seem to be washed out. Most likely because the sun was too close to the camera lens. But it can be fixed – to some extent. Here’s how:

· Load Picasa and find the photo – it’s in a folder somewhere on the left side of the screen

· Click on the image that you want to work on.

· Click on TUNING and then use the sliders to adjust the image. This is purely subjective so use each one in turn to arrive at the most pleasing color rendition.

· When you are satisfied, click on FILE, then SAVE to assure your changes have been saved. That’s all there is to it now you are ready for printing.

· One point to remember is to use these adjustments sparingly so the images don’t take on an other-worldly appearance.

As you might have noticed there are lots of other functions that this and other software can perform. Don’t be afraid to experiment with them you might be surprised at the results!

For those of you who prefer to make changes and do your printing at a kiosk such as Long’s on Olympic, here are some instructions for you as well:

Long’s photo processing terminals are pretty flexible. They allow you to ‘plug in’ most types of camera memory cards, as well as the little case that looks like a small match box for wooden matches ( a USB memory stick) that you can keep on your key chain, or a CD.
We will assume you have the little ‘match box’ (the USB memory stick), although once you find the matching receptacle for your device, all the rest is the same.
You plug it in on the bottom central part of the terminal that sits on the counter in the photo section. At the Long’s on Olympic there are two of them side by side. Most of the time one or both are working properly.
After you plug it in, you need to touch the screen. The terms of service will show on the screen and ask you to touch ‘ok’. You can read the terms of service. If you do you are likely to be the only one among your friends who have read them.
The machine then loads your images from the USB memory stick.
Next you will have the option to select all photos or select them one at a time. Until you get familiar with the terminal, you should select one photo at a time.
This first one will trigger the screens that ask you for your first name. You type it in and click ‘ok’ or ‘done’ (I don’t remember which it is)
Then it asks you for your last name and you click ‘ok’ again after you type it in.
The last request is for your telephone number. These three items are to identify your pictures by your name and allow them to call you if necessary for some reason.
Next you will be asked to select a photo by touching it. The screen shows about 4 to 6 photos at a time and you can scroll to the right to see additional photos that have been loaded.
Select a photo. You will see on the bottom below the picture different picture sizes like 4X6, 5X7, 8X10 and two more totaling five options. The usually size most people get for their albums is 4X6. So you touch 4X6. There is a zero below the size and a minus sign on the left and a + sign on the right. If you want one picture of that photo you touch the ‘+’ sign once and it will change to 1. If you want two, then you touch it twice. If you accidentally three times and get ‘3’, then you touch the ‘-‘ and it will go back to ‘2’.
When you have selected the size and number of that print that you want, you touch the word ‘Edit’ over on the right side of the screen. THIS IS THE SCREEN WHERE YOU NEED TO TOUCH ‘EDIT’ TO START THE EDITING PROCESS.
The picture you had selected will show on the screen five times with a different size under it. You touch the one that is ‘4X6’ and click done.
THE NEXT SCREEN INTRODUCES THE EDITING OPTIONS. They are:

Rotate
Zoom and crop
Red eye
Adjust color
Antique
Black and White

They show up on the right side with a little icon above the word for each of them.

So let’s choose ‘Zoom and crop.’
You will get four images or icons on the screen. The first two on the top will be two circles. The circle on the left will say ‘Zoom Out’ under it and the circle will have a minus sign inside. On the right will be another circle with a + sign in it and it will say ‘Zoom In’ under it. Below these two circles is the larger circle with four arrow tips pointing up, down, left and right. Below this circle is a smaller circle that has the word ‘Rotate’ beneath it.
One of the important characteristics of a good photo is simplicity and having only the elements in the photo that are important to your picture. Our tendency is to stand back too far and we get ‘stuff’ on the sides and above and below that add nothing to your image and, in fact, makes it ‘busy’ and less compelling.
So let’s imagine a picture you want to crop primarily on the sides. Click on ‘Zoom In’ and you will see black lines on the sides of the picture. On one side it might be too close to a person or object. Now you use the four arrows. You touch the left pointing arrow and the black line will move closer to the left edge of the picture and open up a little space between the object or person on the left side that had been ‘squeezed’ by the black line. You get the idea. You can stand there and work on the image and experiment. You can always push the ‘back’ button on the bottom of the page and try again.
You press done when you are satisfied with the cropping.
The six objects come back on the screen and this time you want to touch ‘adjust color’. Long’s changed this just two weeks ago. The screen now says “Auto Enhance.” You touch this button and it adjusts color. It does a fairly good job most of the time. When the screen comes back it shows you before and after.
Now you can touch ‘adjust color’ and you get three options on the screen on the left side. The first one is ‘color’, the middle one is ‘contrast’ and the right one is ‘brightness’. The first one will be ‘lit’ or ‘highlighted’ when this screen opens. On the right side of the screen will be three objects in three rows. They will have a ‘0’ (zero) in the middle and a left facing arrow on the left and a right facing arrow on the right. The first one will have the word ‘cyan’ on the left and ‘red’ on the right. The second one will have the word ‘magenta’ on the left side and ‘green’ on the right side. The third one will have ‘yellow’ on the left and ‘blue’ on the right. These are the three primary colors you can experiment with. Generally, you do not want to change these colors as the cameras do a pretty good job. However, to learn how they affect the image, you should play around and experiment.

When you touch ‘contrast’ the symbols on the right side change. Now there is still a circle with a left facing arrow on the left and a right facing arrow on the right. The word on the left is ‘less’ and the word on the right is ‘more’. You guessed correctly! Touch the button on the left for less contrast in the picture and the touch the arrow on the right for more contrast. You would almost never touch it more than once or twice either for ‘more’ or ‘less’ contrast as the picture gets too washed out (less contrast) or very ‘contrasty’ and they do not look right.
The pattern is similar when you touch the ‘brightness’ icon on the left side. The right side looks identical to the ‘contrast’ setting except the word on the left now is ‘darker’ and the word on the right side now is ‘brighter.’ Again the same principle applies; you rarely would want to touch it more than once or twice.

Now you are dangerous enough to go into Long’s with the memory card out of your camera or a USB memory stick or CD and EXPERIMENT! Remember, you can always push ‘back’ and start over. Even if you somehow end up buying one 4X6 unintentionally, you are only set back $0.19 or so (depending on the special of the day). So go out there and experiment with one of your less than stellar photos and fix it up!

Rossmoor Camera Club

Walter A. Braun

Tim Christoffersen

October 12, 2006