Computer enhancement |
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 Hints and tips by Philip Grosset If you'd like to submit photos for criticism, click here. |
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| A photo editing program (like Photoshop or the much cheaper Photoshop Elements) can offer all the advantages of having your own darkroom without any of the mess and inconvenience! Below are some examples of what can be done. |
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| The photo on the left looks much better after it has been cropped, as on the right. Cropping is something that can be done very easily with absolutely any photo editing program, and it must be the most useful feature of all. However, here I also used Photoshop to remove distracting objects (such as the photo frame) from the background and to straighten up the window. In addition, I threw the background more out of focus, sharpened up the boy and the balloon, and lightened (and slightly yellowed) the area inside the balloon. This all got quite complicated, but the single most important improvement was made by the cropping. |
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| I really like this photo on the left sent me by Matthew Whitford. He spotted something both interesting and amusing, and composed the picture to draw maximum attention to the baby elephant, but including just enough of the other elephants to set the scene. However, it might it have been even better to have reversed the picture, as on the right, so that our eyes move across the picture in the same direction as the elephants, with the darkest framing on the left, so that our eyes also travel from dark to light. This is another change very simply made with the aid of a photo editing program. |
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| A computer can also desaturate the image, as on the right here. So we no longer need to use b&w film to obtain b&w pictures! |
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| I thought this stained glass window, showing Houghton Mill in Cambridgshire, in the Millenium Window at the parish church might make an effective greetings card. Stained glass windows usually come out well if the sun is shining through them - but, in this instance it wasn't! Another major difficulty is that when you look up at a tall window from below, the resulting photo often shows it leaning in towards the top. Also the surrounding area often comes out black. All three of these problems can be seen in the original version of this photo, as shown on the left, but they could all be put right by using a photo editing program to correct the distortion, increase the brightness and crop away the dark surround, as shown on the right. |
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| Another greetings card. The photo of the flowers on the left looks a bit muddled, but a photo editing program allowed me to use a round vignette to pick out the most interesting part and surround it with a pink background with appropriate lettering on it, as seen on the right. If you look very carefully, you may be able to see that I've added my signature to the bottom of the vignette (light yellow lettering on the brown background). This is something that can be done in Photoshop by photographing (or scanning) the signature then making it into a customised brush that can be dabbed on as required. I also slightly darkened the twig beside it as I felt it was distracting attention from the flowers. |
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| You don't have to have a computer to take an attractive photograph. Given a subject like this, get in very close and use a dark or out of focus background to show it off. Even add a few drops of water to suggest dew! I must admit, though, that a photo editing program was used in the version on the right so that I could come in closer still, and also simplify the background. I think computer enhancement is at its best when you can't see it has been applied. I'm not so keen on garish unreal images of the sort so often seen on the readers' photos pages of digital photo magazines! There's more about computer enhancement on the Going Digital page, with examples on many of the Your Photos pages. |
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| Looking for a new camera? or thinking about going digital? I'd be most grateful if you'd let me know what you think of this site by signing my guest book. |
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