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Digital Photos Touch Up Guide

Thanks to the versatility of digital photography, there is perhaps more to learn about after the photograph is taken than there is when taking the picture itself. How exactly do you touch up your raw digital images? How do you lighten a dark image, correct 'dirty spots', crop an excessive background and more? Since most digital photos call for some level of enhancements before final output, here is a list of the more basic modifications that night have to be made to your digital images.

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.

Step 2: Remove Red-Eye Almost everyone has experienced the red-eye effect when taking pictures of people. This is an easy corrected problem with image editing software. A Red-Eye Removal tool can be found in the menu of Paint Shop Pro that does all of the work for you. Ulead Photo Impact offers the same feature with its Remove Red Eye option 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 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 Adding a blurring effect sometimes can make a photo stand out. To do this, select an area or areas of the photo which are unimportant and blur them out to bring more attention to the subject. For a close up of a butterfly on a flower, blur out the leaves or grass in the background to really make the subject stand out.

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 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.