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Design a Web Album Using Adobe Photoshop- Part 2

November 10th, 2005

Design a Web Album Using Adobe Photoshop- Part 2

by: Robert Kennedy

So let’s begin crunching down these 300 images using Adobe Photoshop from start to finish. When I say ‘crunching’, to some 300 images may seem like allot, but it’s not. I have done jobs for clients that have 100,000 plus images. When you have that many images to produce there are other programs I use that are designed for this. We’ll cover that another day.

To this point we have ensured that our images are web ready, cropping, retouching, watermarking, etc. So let’s get at it. I will assume that we are all using Adobe Photoshop version 6 or greater.

First we will go to the ‘file’ menu and select ‘Automate” shown here http://weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_dw_create_photo_menu.htm. Now you are ready to create the theme of your photo album by filling in the required textfields. Remember to be as brief and descriptive as possible, as this information gets published on all html pages generated by Photoshop. This is where Photoshop is seems to offer more that Dreamweaver. You will notice the first pull down menu ‘styles’. There are many different horizontal and vertical styles available. The second menu allows you to enter an email address that you may want to be available to your visitors. However, I advise against it. Remember that thing called SPAM. Then next pull down menu allows you to specify .htm or .html extensions. Now we’ll click the ‘browse’ button and locate your image source folder. Click the ‘destination’ folder. This folder should be located somewhere in you website folder. If you don’t have one, make one. ‘Options’ is, again an area that Adobe seems far more thorough that Dreamweaver. The ‘options’ menu let’s you specify every aspect of your photo album…size of small thumbnails, size of large thumbnails, add custom colors to better tie into your corporate scheme. Remember to complete the ‘site name’, ‘photographer’, textfields tactfully; this is what tells the search engine what your subject matter deals with.

Are you ready now? Go ahead click OK. Like magic your photo album manufacturing itself. This is a great tool that can be used commercially or just for fun. Create commercial product pages for your clients or create an online photo album for family and friends in minutes.

About The Author

Robert is an online leader in graphic design and print. Online since 1999, Robert has spearheaded the success of http://www.weprintcolor.com by providing the finest online graphic design system on the web.

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How to Put Colors in Your Photograph

November 4th, 2005

How to Put Colors in Your Photograph

by: Paul Hood

Wouldn’t it be nice to see your black and white photos in full color? Learning to create and edit old photos is fairly easy and very worthwhile. Digitally restored photos can be used to make digital scrapbooks, posted to Web sites, shared through email, and printed for gift-giving or display.

To achieve this effect, we will need to colorize using Paint Shop Pro. According to Bill Brewer, “colorizing is a feature built into PSP that keeps the luminance values (the bright and dark parts that make up the recognizable image) and colors the image with one color. The image to be colorized needs to have a color depth of 16.7 million colors, and it can be in full color to start with (reduction to grayscale is not required before colorizing). Using that command brings up a dialog box where you have control over the hue and saturation, with a preview. I suggest you DON’T use that menu item to colorize images. Instead use the more powerful HSL adjustments accessed with the Colors>Adjust>Hue/Saturation/Lightness… command. That way, you have complete control over the hue/saturation/lightness, and the color preview is much better than what you get with Colorize.”

To start off, get your photo ready. Begin by scanning your black and white photo into your PC. Make sure that your picture is straight and if not, use Paint Shop Pro’s Straighten tool to “uncrook” the image. Next then would be running the One Step Photo Fix by clicking the Enhance Photo button in the Photo toolbar atop the screen and choose One Step Photo Fix. Try to clean up whatever dirt or scratch that you may see in the picture.

Now, moving on to the next part. Working in layers. Choose the Layers, Duplicate tab to make a duplicate of the image you want to colorize. We can now make color changes to the top layer without affecting the original image underneath, letting us adjust the intensity of the colorization by playing with the layer’s opacity.

Now for the final part, you may choose to use either the Freehand Selection toll in Smart Edge mode or you may opt to use the Magic Wand. Set Feather to about 1 pixel, and select one of the faces. Once done, click on the Flood Fill tool and set the Blend Mode to Color in the toolbar at the top of the screen. For a typical Caucasian skin tone, set the Red, Green, and Blue levels to about 215, 190, and 150, respectively, then click OK. Now click Flood Fill to colorize the selected face. You can repeat this process for all of the skin in the image.

Then select the clothing and background and add color to as much or as little as you wish. When you’re done with the image, you might want to adjust the overall intensity of the colorization. To do that, make sure the Layer Palette is open (if it isn’t, choose View, Palettes, Layers) and then double-click on the Copy of Background layer–this is the one on top that we’ve been painting. Then you can use the Opacity slider in the layer’s dialog box to change the color effect. When you’re satisfied, click OK to keep your changes.

Above simple instructions from Dave Johnson is very easy to follow and is very helpful for the particular purpose.

About The Author

Ariel Velasco goes by the author alias of Paul Hood. This author is into books and writing. Reading is an essential part of his life and this has lent a considerable influence in his writing. Well traveled and would always want to travel more. He loves learning more about people and their ways. Took up a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology to further this fascination and had a fulfilling educational experience having been exposed to a wide spectrum of people. Always ready for new opportunities to learn and have a great deal of interest in different fields of expertise.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

articles@ucreatie.com

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How to Chose Stock Photography for your Web Site

November 2nd, 2005

How to Chose Stock Photography for your Web Site

by: Kelly Paal

So youve decided to take the plunge. You know that stock photography is an effective tool for your web business, but where do you start and how do you choose the stock photo thats right for you. Here are some tips to get you started so that you are happy with your choice.

1. Decide where you want to purchase your stock photography. There are large agencies and small independent photographers. While the agencies will have more to chose from and sometimes lower prices an independent photographer will offer more personalized service and opportunities for you to have custom work done, if that is what you need.

2. Dont go in expecting to find an exact image that is in your head, a large agency or an independent photographer will not have the man in a blue suit, holding a cell phone, next to the white blinds nor will they have the beach landscape with the green and white striped chair. You need to have a clear idea in your head of the message that you want to convey and search for an image that creates the message that you want. (If you want something specific youll have to pay for a photography to shoot to your specifications.)

3. Make use of a free comp image to try out the image and make sure that it fits with your project or web design. Most stock agencies offer some sort of free comp image for position only so that you can make sure that you like what youre going to buy. Please use this option, if available, and make sure that the image is going to convey the message that you want it to.

4. Pay for what you need. Dont pay for a 300 dpi image for a web design, and dont buy a 72 dpi image for something you intend to print. Make sure that the agency or independent photographer offers at least a printable and a web version of every photo. Buy only the size image that you need for your job.

5. How much do you want to pay and for how long to you want to use the image? This comes down to royalty free or rights managed. If you dont want the chance of your competitor using the same image or you plan to use the image on or for a product you may want to look at rights managed. This will cost you more but it will lessen the chance of your competitor using the same image. Keep in mind that if youre using the image for an extended period of time you will have to pay for the use of the image every year or so. If you dont feel that your competitor using the same image is a threat or you dont have the money for rights managed photos look into royalty free photography. This product is also great if youre planning to use the images for an extended period of time.

I hope these tips help to get you started in choosing stock photography for your web site, business, or product. Remember to shop around and look for what you need. Also if an agency or photographer doesnt have what you need ask, you may be surprised how helpful they can be even for specific requests. If you have some specific questions please visit my Photography Forum at: http://kellypaalphotography.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php and post your question there.

About The Author

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

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Black & White Photography

October 31st, 2005

Black & White Photography

by: Jakob Jelling

Photography is a diversified field of creating a spectral variety of art. It is a specialization that deals with different experimentations with colors, however it is also a fact that only shades of black and white can also do wonders in this zone of creative art. With the advent of the digital camera the scope of this wonderful business has opened up new horizons for the users and photographers who seek to explore new lands and trod the ground of innovative creation and thus it can be aptly said that black & white can become more creativity with the boon of digital photography and digital camera. This discussion is primarily aimed at exploring the incipient information regarding the blessing of the digital camera in black & white photography so that the novice as well as the expert photographers can become richer in knowledge!

The exploration can be further extended in defining that a lot of modern digital cameras contain a series of mono modes in the advanced menu settings. These can be used to become more creative with digital photography and in the areas of black and white too. For example some of the modes are as follows: Black & White that takes black and white photographs encompassing of a spectral range of gray tones. This gives the black and white photographs a serious and ethereal look with the richness and grandeur of the past, present and future captures in just two tinges! Another mode is Sepia that again takes pictures in varying tinges brown tones. Looking into a matter a bit more technically, it can be stated that as the digital camera is switched into any of these modes then the color LCD becomes grayscale. The technology proceeds as in the process the pictures are taken the color signals get recorded by the CCD, but the image is later de saturated when processed to remove all color.

A lot of interesting points exist in the area of black and white photography using the digital cameras. For example shooting in black & white becomes more interesting with the use of filters. Experimentations can be done by the enthusiastic photographers as to how a particular color would appear in black & white. This can be demonstrated by the fact that perhaps a red filter placed over the lens lightens any red color in the picture making them appear as lighter shades of gray in comparison to other colors like blue green. This process can be very challenging and in the same time very interesting! It is true that digital black and white photography can be used often for the purpose of portraiture and taking pictures of landscapes and can also become very effective in abstract shoots offering a graphical view of the subject to be photographed. The ultimate truth is that the black and white digital photography can make the world look complete different from what it is through the human eyes.

The graphics software from Adobe - Photoshop - with its more advanced options a person can edit each of the colors in the image to lighten or darken and provide the effect of brightness in varying intensity too. Becoming an expert in this can make a person versatile in techniques of adjusting the tonal range of a black & white image. This is the liberty that the digital camera provides in the field of black and white photography. Thus the users can make much more efficient and richer quality photographs.

The above lines of this discussion has explored the incipient ground of interest and information of black and white photography using the digital camera, however it has to be noted here that to get the real taste of the honey the users or photographers must not waste time and take up their digital cameras and get going into the cool new and most beautiful world of digital black and white photography! It is out there for everyone.

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.snapjunky.com. Visit his digital camera guide and learn how to take better pictures with your digicam.

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Tips for Better Vacation Photos

October 29th, 2005

Tips for Better Vacation Photos

by: Valerie Goettsch

Photos are a great way to share your travel experiences with family and friends. Here are a few suggestions to help you capture vacation memories you will treasure for years to come.

PLAN AHEAD

Make sure your digital camera is in good working order before you go, and keep it in a water- and shock-resistant case. Bring two sets of rechargeable batteries and don’t forget the charger and relevant cords. Make sure your camera has enough memory. Packing an extra memory card is wise, as there is nothing worse than running out of room for pictures halfway down the Grand Canyon. It may be tempting to lower the resolution so you can store more pictures, but you will regret this later as it may result in poorer quality prints, or you will be limited to smaller size prints. Set your camera at its highest quality JPEG setting and get more memory if you have to. You will appreciate this when you’re viewing and printing your photos after your trip.

TAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF PICTURES.

With a digital camera you can always erase the photos you don’t want. Take pictures of anything you find interesting and try to focus on some of the details such as an attractive doorway or a colorful market, not just panoramic scenes or major landmarks. Let your pictures tell a story by creating a visual diary of your trip. Include street scenes, interesting signs, people you see along the way. For variety take both vertical and horizontal pictures.

READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP?

When taking people shots, don’t make the mistake of standing too far away. You want to be able to recognize the people in your photos. Get close enough so you can see the expressions on your subjects faces. Zoom in on individuals or capture them from the waist up. Pictures are often more interesting when you can catch people at candid, un-posed moments. In posed photos, try to incorporate some of the background into your shot. Try snapping from interesting angles rather than simply head-on.

USE YOUR FLASH

When photographing in bright sunlight, setting your camera’s “fill” or “forced” flash is very helpful, particularly when photographing people. Brilliant sunlight often makes people’s faces look harsh, casting dark shadows under the eyes and accentuating wrinkles. The daytime fill-in flash will soften the lighting and make the images more flattering. Your family and friends in the photos will thank you!

EDIT AND ENHANCE YOUR FAVORITE SHOTS

When you get home you can edit, crop and enhance your favorites using photo editing software such as Foto Finish, Ulead or Photoshop Elements. Consider adding drama to your images by turning some of your color photos into black and white or sepia tones and then upload all your images to an online photo printing service like Ofoto or Shutterfly for fast and convenient prints. You can take your best snaps and use your photo editing software to create a photo calendar or make photo cards for personal notes, or to email your favorites to family and friends.

Most of all have fun with your camera!

About The Author

Valerie Goettsch publishes the digital photography website http://www.digitalphotos101.com featuring reviews of photo editing and album software and digital photo printing services.

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Better Photos with your Digital Camera

May 14th, 2005

Better Photos with your Digital Camera

by: Kelly Paal

Everyone has a digital camera today and we all take a lot of photos. But if your photos still have trees coming out of your father’s head, mom has red eye, and your beloved pet is never facing the camera then here are some tips to help you take better photos.

1. Always be aware of the background. I know this is the hard one but it is critical. If you’re setting up a shot take a quick look at what is behind the people in your shot. So many perfectly good photos are ruined by a tree seeming to grow out of a person’s head. It can be as simple as the person taking one full step to the right or left to move the obstacle that would ruin your photo.

2. Use available light. If your digital camera has an option to turn the flash off and it’s light enough outside to read a book then use the available light and turn the flash off. In general camera flashes are too harsh for human skin and make all of us look pale. (Even better if your camera has a fill flash use that indoors where there isn’t enough daylight, and place the person by a window as well.)

3. Use ambient soft light. The reason that so many of use pose people under trees, and end up with the ruined photo with a tree coming out of dad’s head, is that we all instinctively know that soft light is best. Sunlight filtered through a trees’ leave is beautiful and warm. It warms up the skin and puts a soft light to the features. Indoors near a window with drapes has a similar effect.

4. Aim your camera slightly down at the person’s face. Now I don’t mean climb a ladder but just don’t ever, and I mean ever, point your camera looking up to a person. We all look fat and bloated at that angle. Also don’t shoot just face on to the person, try a little to the side, a three quarter view, so that you see more of their face. Remember camera higher looking down and a three quarter view, it will slim your subject.

5. Remember your focus, are you taking a photo of mom and the tree, then take mom with the whole tree. But if you’re taking a photo of mom next to a tree do we really need to see the entire tree? Get closer to your subject. We can see some of the tree bark with mom leaning against it, but showing the whole tree is a waste. Remember this tip with children, many people take a shot of their dear child for an expression on the child’s face, but in the printed shot the child is lost next to another kid, the swing set, and the dog. Remember get closer.

6. Never put your subject dead center. All family photographers do this and it’s as hard of a habit to break as remembering to look at the background. But if you’ve moved closer to your subject remember to put them just sightly off center. Not a lot just a bit. When you’re shooting even groups of people this is especially easy but odd numbered groups is a little more difficult. Just find your imaginary center line of your group and put that line just a bit off center in your view through your lens or screen.

With these tips you can be on your way to taking better photos today.

About The Author

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.
kellypaa@kellypaalphotography.com

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The Top 3 Best Photo Editing Softwares

May 12th, 2005

The Top 3 Best Photo Editing Softwares

by: Maui Reyes

Being a photo editor is not rocket science. All it takes is a lot of creativity and a mastery of some of the best photo editing software available in the market.

Photoshop Elements 3

This is almost like a primer for Adobe Photoshop—so beginners, don’t feel intimidated. Elements does have some of the features that Photoshop is well known for, which comes quite handy when you’ve decided you’ve like to try your hand on something more upscale than cropping and resizing.

It’s so easy to use this program, what with it being simple and easy to navigate. And talk about user-friendly—at start up, a “recipes” palette asks if you’d like a step-by-step tutorial of the program.

Elements can also import stills from video clips, as well as PDF files. And when you’re feeling a bit lazy (or is just plain ignorant about how to use some of the tools), a “Quick Fix” wizard can help you adjust the essentials: lighting, focus, color, and rotation of images.

For those who like their photos in widescreen editions, Elements’ Panorama Tool helps you seamlessly put together photos to create a panoramic photo. It blends in the colors, as well.

And when it’s time to print and show off your photography skills, you can pick one of the “picture package” templates to automatically print them in a specific size.

PhotoImpact 10

A little bit more technical than Photoshop, PhotoImpact needs a lot of patience to master. This program is best for eager learners with a lot of time in their hands to figure out the “too-technical” features that would scare away first time photo editing users.

However, PhotoImpact does have its gems. An ExpressFix features shows you several options to fix exposure, color, saturation, focus, and skin. It also comes equipped with a 360 panorama program. Probably the shiniest gem in the package would be the “Beautiful Skin” effect, which removes red patches and evens out your skin tone. Can you say airbrush?

While PhotoImpact doesn’t support PDF files, it does allow you to grab images off the internet. Type in the URL of a webpage, click on the image you want to get, then edit away.

It’s a little tricky to use at first, but once you get a hold on PhotoImpact’s tools, you’ll be thankful you took the time to learn.

Digital Image Suite 9

Microsoft’s own photo editing software is like digital spoon feeding.

Image Suite 9 is a very basic image editing software that hardly requires a tutorial. While it does work wonders for those who only want to share pictures online, it could be quite frustrating for those who want to flex their creativity muscles a little bit more.

Image Suite 9 lacks some features that you might want to use later on. That said, there still are a bunch to keep you happy. While there’s no auto color fix option (quite essential to fix the crappy lighting most digital cameras capture), there are still the basic features of cropping, adjusting brightness and contrast, and removing red-eye.

The most advanced this software can get would be removing blemishes, whiten teeth, and eliminating wrinkles. The layering option is hardly even handy—you can layer on photos, but it’s virtually impossible to unlayer them.

This program will work perfectly if you want hassle-free, basic photo editing.

About The Author

Maui Reyes has written various articles of different topics. She has a clever writing skills that isnt just good for marketing strategies but also in reviews of products, news, technological innovations, health problems, legality issues and many more. Another factor that made her land into this job is her flexibility in her writing just about everything under the sun.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

artciles@ucreative.com

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Adobe Photoshop levels-Turn junk into gold by clicking a button

May 3rd, 2005

Adobe Photoshop levels-Turn junk into gold by clicking a button

by: Robert Kennedy

There is no doubt in my mind; Adobe Photoshop is the greatest Photo editing program in the world. Whether you are a novice or an expert Photoshop is the program for you. Photoshop is used by my children and by the movie making industry. So what exactly can I do with Photoshop? The better question is what can’t you do with Photoshop?

Today I would like to talk about the simple little function in Photoshop called ‘Levels’, the first step to improving the appearance of a photograph. There are 4 basic steps taken to enhance, brighten or retouch photos are Levels, Brightness, Variations, and Saturation, in that order.

“The Levels dialog box lets you correct the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of the image’s shadows, midtones, and highlights. The Levels histogram serves as a visual guide for adjusting the image’s key tones.” Adobe’s official description of levels

Screen example here: http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_ps_levels.htm

Use levels to set to darkest and lightest points or sharpen the picture. From the top menu select Image, then select Adjustments, then select Levels, or if you are a ctrl key fan click ‘ctrl l’. The histogram appears; the sliders at the bottom control brightness and contrast while the sliders above control tonal values. I said we were going to keep it simple so let’s use the sliders at the top. They appear as 3 small triangles. Start to play with them. Move them left to right and right to left while watching the changes you are making to the photograph. When you are satisfied the picture appears optimized click OK. Budda boom, you’re done. How long did that take?

That was really easy and effective. If you feel adventurous repeat the process above. This time when the levels menu appears double click on the eyedropper and target your tonal areas.

Here’s a couple of helpful tips while working with Adobe Photoshop:

Click the ‘tab key’ to clear all tool bars.

To save an image for the web click ‘cntrl, shift, alt, S’

Learn how to use the ‘automate’ feature and save valuable time.

About The Author

Robert is an online leader in graphic design and print. Online since 1999, Robert has spearheaded the success of http://www.weprintcolor.com by providing the finest online graphic design system on the web.

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Review: Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS

April 30th, 2005

Review: Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS

by: Maricon Williams

Photoshop CS is no doubt the most momentous Photoshop progress which complements digital photographers. Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS discusses exciting new features for general users, web designers, video editors and digital photographers. This book is authored by Bruce Fraser.

Bruce Fraser is a noted author having co-authored the penultimate Photoshop resource book Real World Photoshop from Peachpit Press. He is also a contributing editor for Mac World plus a regular contributor for CreativePro where he wrote his “Out of Gamut” articles. Fraser is also a co-author of Real World Color Management from Peachpit Press. He has also made a study of human vision and how it relates to reproducible color in photography and photomechanical reproduction. Bruce is a regular speaker and presenter at notable trade shows and conferences as well as Seybold and Thunder Lizard’s Photoshop Conferences. He has also consulted for an extensive series of major photographic and digital imaging companies.

Adobe Photoshop CS is the new version (Version of Adobe Photoshop. It is a part of the newly announced Adobe Creative Suite which combines new versions of Adobe Photoshop CS with ImageReady CS, Adobe illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe GoLive CS, Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional, and the new “Version Cue” file version manager, which lets you track integrations quickly and locate files easily.

Camera RAW part of Photoshop 7 Adobe Photoshop Camera RAW & JPEG 2000 Plug-in Bundle is now an integrated part of Photoshop CS. This has added substantial power to Photoshop CS. JPEG 2000 delivers superior quality for the same compression ratios. Conversely, since no camera support JPEG 2000, support is available through a separate plug-in that ships with the software.

Depending on the camera brand, Raw may come in different flavors. Adobe Photoshop CS covers most RAW formats available today. However, RAW data may not be always read accurately. For example, the white balance of Nikon Coolpix 5000 images may have unnatural result which is not a case with Nikon Capture 3.5. To fix the white balance, click in a non-specular white area followed by a minor tint adjustment. Supplementary adjustments can be made through the advanced “Calibration” tab. The “Adjust” tab controls exposure, shadow, brightness and contrast sliders. Albeit Photoshop CS features now a new Histogram Palette, the RAW dialog box also features live histograms.

Noise reduction is not a problem with Photoshop CS. It has the color noise reduction and luminance smoothing sliders which allow you to reduce colors and luminance noise. Luminance noise should be use with caution because it can lead to an artificial “water paint” effect. The noise reduction performs very well and preserves the image detail and sharpness.

To remove chromatic aberrations, apply a local desaturation in the corresponding color channels. The Lens tab of the Raw dialog box provides effective ways of eliminating these aberrations.

To have additional knowledge of Camera raw with Adobe Photoshop CS, purchase a copy of this book. It will sure enlighten the dark areas of the subject matter.

About The Author

Maricon Williams

I love reading. Give me a book and I’ll finish it in one sitting. Reading is the chance to be transported to a different world and so is writing. I’m more enthusiastic about writing however, since you can relay your ideas to someone else. I can only imagine that feeling when I hear a complete stranger talking about my ideas which read on an article somewhere. To relay my message to as many people is the same as touching people with music. Only mine’s less harmonic. I try to make up for it with the color I bring with words. And most of the time, it’s more than enough.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

articles@ucreative.com

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A Guide to Touching Up Your Digital Photos

March 25th, 2005

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.

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 4×6 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 on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.basic-digital-photography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.

gary_hendricks@basic-digital-photography.com

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3D Effect In Photoshop

March 19th, 2005

3D Effect In Photoshop

by: Blur Loterina
You can use your Adobe Photoshop in creating 3D images. Since 2Ds are obsolete and 3Ds are in, you might want to start enhancing your skill in computer graphics.

You can start making a cube. Your aim is to create an image of cube that is viewed in such a way that the three sides, left, right and top, are shown. Then, learn how to put different effects on it, like shadow, to make it more realistic.

Adobe Photoshop is an ideal program for making two dimensional (2D) images. But it does not limit you to this type of image. You can also create your three dimensional image, or the so-called 3D image, by using the 3D Transform. This will allow you to create simple 3 dimensional shapes or wrap an image in a 3D shape.

To access 3D transform, go to Filter, select Render and choose 3-D Transform. The editing box will appear. This is where you can find the primitive tools. These tools are used to edit the three kinds of primitives, which includes sphere, cube and cylinder. Also, these tools will allow you to create basic images and editing tools, such as Select and Direct Select. The Select tool enables you to move objects, while the Direct Select tool lets you to make adjustments by dragging the anchor points.

If you want to preview your work, use viewing options like pan camera. There is also the trackball that is used to move the 3D render around from different angles.

For the 3D shapes, create first the new layer. Fill it with color. On the 3D shapes layer, create some drop shadows or darker shades of color fills. And because 3D transform only distorts the pixels, you might need these fills to see the effect.

If you want to create 3D effects on your text, use the different transform functions. You can use the shortcut key Alt + E/F and then hold down Ctrl as you drag any of the handles to any desired direction.

Before you add filters or layers effect, you might want to rasterize your text layer. To do this, right click on the layer in the layers palette. Then, choose Rasterize Layer. You will notice that your text will be converted into a normal layer so that you can freely edit it. Create a backup copy because you cannot edit the text after rasterization.

Experiment on images. There are a lot of ways in which you can create 3D shapes, objects and text.

About The Author

Blur Loterina

I love reading. Give me a book and I’ll finish it in one sitting. Reading is the chance to be transported to a different world and so is writing. I’m more enthusiastic about writing however, since you can relay your ideas to someone else. I can only imagine that feeling when I hear a complete stranger talking about my ideas which read on an article somewhere. To relay my message to as many people is the same as touching people with music. Only mine’s less harmonic. I try to make up for it with the color I bring with words. And most of the time, it’s more than enough.

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