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Straighten Crooked Photos

To best way to straighten images in Photoshop is by using the Measure Tool, which takes all the guess work out of it. As we’ll see in a moment, as long as there’s something in the image that should be straight, Photoshop will do most of the work for us! The Measure Tool, by default, is hiding behind the Eyedropper Tool in the Tools palette, so to select it, you’ll need to click and hold your mouse button down on the Eyedropper Tool for a second or two. A fly-out menu will appear showing you the other tools hiding behind it. Click on the Measure Tool to select it.

Look for something in your image that should be straight, either horizontally or vertically. We’re going to drag along its edge with the Measure Tool so Photoshop has something to work with when trying to figure out how crooked the photo actually is. In my case, I’m going to click and drag horizontally along the roof of the building directly behind Ms. Liberty. Obviously the roof should be perfectly horizontal, yet it clearly isn’t at the moment. I’ll simply click once on the left side of the roof, then hold my mouse button down and drag over to the right side of the roof. This draws a thin line between where I first clicked on the left and where I finished dragging on the right, and Photoshop uses the angle of this line to determine how far the image will need to be rotated in order to straighten it.

So, basically, to straighten something all you need to do is click and drag with the Measure Tool along the edge of something in the photo that should be straight horizontally or vertically. You can look up in the Options Bar at the top of the screen and see the angle of the line you’ve just drawn (it’s the number listed to the right of the letter “A”). In my case, we can see that my line is on an angle of 1.9 degrees:

The Options Bar showing the angle of the line drawn with the Measure Tool. Photoshop can now use this angle to determine how far to rotate the image in order to straighten it. Choose The “Rotate Canvas – Arbitrary” Command Go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen, choose Rotate Canvas, and then choose Arbitrary:

Go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. I have to laugh every time I do this because the word “arbitrary” actually means “random or by chance”, yet that’s exactly the opposite of what we’re doing here. We’re not randomly rotating our image or leaving anything to chance. We’ve used the Measure Tool to find out exactly how much of an angle our image needs to be rotated by, and now Photoshop can use the information we’ve given it to straighten our image without any guess work. As I’ve said before, much of the problem with learning Photoshop comes from getting around the terminology, and in this case, I don’t know what Adobe was thinking.

However, life goes on. Once you select “Arbitrary”, Photoshop pops up the Rotate Canvas dialog box, and as we can see, all the work has already been done for us. In my case, Photoshop has already entered a value of 1.85 for the Angle option, and it even knew that the image will need to be rotated counter-clockwise, which is why the CCW option is also selected:

Photoshop Tutorials: The “Rotate Canvas” dialog box with the angle and direction already selected for us. You may be wondering why Photoshop entered an angle of 1.85 when the Options Bar showed an angle of 1.9 a moment ago. The reason is because Photoshop rounds off the angles in the Options Bar to 1 decimal place, so it showed 1.9 even though the angle of the line we drew with the Measure Tool was actually 1.85. The angle shown in the Rotate Canvas dialog box is the correct angle.

Finally all we need to do is click on the OK button in the Rotate Canvas dialog box to exit and have Photoshop rotate and straighten the image for us. You should see that the image is now properly rotated and straightened. Everything looks great, and thankfully the Statue of Liberty is no longer leaning to the right. We straightened the image without any guess work thanks to the Measure Tool and the Rotate Canvas command.

Of course, there is a small problem. By rotating the image inside the document window, we’ve added some white canvas areas around the outside of the photo. We’ll need to finish things off by cropping away those areas, and for that, we can use Photoshop’s Crop Tool. Select the Crop Tool from the Tools palette, or simply press the letter C on your keyboard to select it with the shortcut:

With the Crop Tool chosen click near the top left corner of your image and drag down towards the bottom right to create a border around the part of the image you want to keep. Fine-tune your selection by dragging any of corner handles or by dragging the top, bottom, left or right sides of the selection:

You can use the Crop Tool to drag a selection area around the portion of the image you want to retain. Once you’ve dragged out your cropping border, press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to have Photoshop crop the image.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Freelance Writing and Photography

Thinking of becoming a freelance writer? Then you should also think about photography. Your articles will be much more valuable if you can include some good, original and pertinent photographs in your articles.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, therefore if you are writing an article it goes without saying that some photographs of the subject will add value to your article, and lets face it, you are not going to do any freelance writing for free. So the better the article the more money you make.

With a digital camera and a quality memory stick, anyone can take a reasonable photo. Why not add photography to your repertoire, you will be adding to your value to you client.

A handshake deal will always cause you problems, either you or your client will remember something differently. Trust is a good thing, so trust in your contract or written agreement, not in yours or your clients memory or honesty.

Location, subject, theme, time span and especially dollars, all this should be set out in writing before you go buying your own ticket for the travel. Sending off an email advising the editor of your fees and conditions won’t do the job, you have to get an email from the client agreeing to your conditions, or offering his own conditions.

You will need to know how many photos he is willing to pay for. What photos he wants, and what the subjects are to be. How much per photo are you going to get paid, and who holds the copyright.

Some editors will want the copyright of any of the photos that you take. If you can avoid it never sell your copyright, let alone give it away. As a newcomer you will feel under pressure to hand over your copyright to your employer, don’t. A professional will never give away his rights and will only sell them for a large fee.

All professional photographers take lots of photos of the same subject, this is to eliminate the possibility of any mistakes or flaws that may show up when you have left the scene. Why spend unnecessary money going back to the location of the photo shoot just because the pic isn’t quite the way you would like it.

Digital cameras are a wonderful invention, gone are the days of expensive film. Now you can take as many photos as time permits rather than as finances permit. Digital photos can be stored or discarded as you see fit.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Digital Photography Close Up

Digital technology has been the reason for the ease of access in a number of areas made available to people today. Many noteworthy inventions were designed to make it easier for people to complete whatever their jobs entail. One example of this extraordinary breakthrough is in digital photography, through better ease and comfort in capturing pictures of any type.

What is digital photography exactly? Digital photography can be different things depending on different people’s interpretation. Some people identify digital photography as something which changes over a traditional photo into digital format all by using a scanner. Others take it as something that is completed by means of a traditional picture taken from film and digitizing it with the computer. While others still perceive it as something captured digitally by means of a digital camera.

In general, digital photography is a style of photography that does not involve film. This is the fundamental idea of digital photo capture. This is convenient for use because there is no requirement to wait for the picture in order for it to be printed. Using a digital camera, the image be taken and then quickly transferred from the camera to the computer. Instantly the picture is available on the monitor and you can even preview the image and make sure the image quality is good and the color is correct. If the picture is not quite what you wanted, just delete the image and retake the photo.

More and more people are considering buying a digital camera due to the great features available. There is the drive to go digital because of the capability to stretch the imagination and be creative with the photography. You can alter the look and feel of the image with little effort involved. You can modify the background or add a text to the picture to give it more character. Whatever you envisioned for your photo, it can be done when it’s taken digitally.

Digital cameras allow you to fix the image quality of your photographs. You can edit, enhance or restore your photo according to your taste. All these can be done in real time.

Now the question is how digital photography can fix the image quality of a certain photo. To ensure that your photo gets the best image quality, you need to check the setting of your digital camera before you press on that click button. If the image is already in your computer, you can check the screen of the computer to verify if it your snapshot is in the highest image quality.

Repairing the image quality of a digital photograph frequently involves quite a few elements such as the colors and the contrast. The contrast is significant if you want to get the finest result in your photos. To add life to your photos, you can improve the image quality by adjusting its colors. There are endless options offered by digital photography to ensure beautiful pictures.

Even with all of the advancements, we still have much to learn about the possibilities of digital photography. Some of the issues being developed deal with the image quality, cost of production, the features of digital camera and other services. All of these are being thought of in order to bring the world of photography within reach to everyone.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

More Marketing Graphics To Drive Up Sales

If you are running an online business, you know how important it is to spend your advertising money wisely. It is why you need to make sure your website is selling as well as possible.

This means when you sell stuff online, you should use the best performing graphics design on your site. If you use anything less, sales will drop off along with your profits, and you will have no money to continue advertising.

When you start selling online, you will notice that different folks like different things. It is the reason you need to match the marketing graphics to your market – to make sure you are bonding through the visual representation you are creating.

Once your marketing graphic is designed, you need to test it to make sure it works for your product or service. Graphics should be eye catching and pleasing, and avoiding any negative emotional connections.

In summary, there is one important idea to mention. It is the idea of unity, or continuity – which means that your pictures and words are connected and create a single message. If you always present the same message to your buyers, you will sell more, since they will believe you more. This is why big companies like SBC Global will use a spokesperson rather than generic messages from the corporate office.

If you carefully choose your best marketing graphics and make sure they work best for your market, you will be able to make a lot more profit with the same advertising spends. And that means you get ahead faster than your competitors.

Why not try some new marketing graphics today?

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

The Basics of Photoshop

A friend of mine took the plunge and invested in Photoshop. He had saved and planned for this purchase that was going to make his life easier. He had envisioned getting Photoshop and immediately creating graphics that would be the envy of all on the internet. But then he attempted to use it. He was totally lost! Don’t let this happen to you. Now that you’ve invested in Photoshop you want to get the most out of it possible. This is an expensive tool but obviously well worth its weight in gold to anyone having the knowledge to use it to its full potential.

You shouldn’t have to go through this tragedy. You deserve better. Photoshop may be expensive, but anyone who knows how to properly use it will tell you it’s worth every cent. Like anything else you will have to make mistakes and learn by yourself, exploring the interface of the software. One way to help is to go to ‘Preferences’. Here you can improve the performance of your Photoshop.

Here is some advice to get you started. Search for the ‘History Log’ on the screen. This is where you can save your progress while you edit your image. The are a number of options to personalize your session. For example select ‘Sessions Only’ to make the log remember the time and date that you start each session. Choose ‘Concise’ to recall more information about your work. And you can pick ‘Detailed’ for the most information, recording details about every edit you do to the image.

Find the ‘History Log’. Here you can save every step you take when making your picture. You can choose how much information it saves. For example choose the ‘Sessions Only’ to remember the time and date that you start each Photoshop session. ‘Concise’ records more information on all the editing sessions. You can also choose ‘Detailed’ which does the same job as ‘Concise’, but also notes the file path and details about every edit to the file.

The only real way to learn Photoshop is to play around with things. Keep exploring and discover what you can do. For more specific learning read about Photoshop online and try out the many available video tutorials. After a while, you’ll be making superb pictures just like my nephew wanted to!

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

Buying Used Digital Cameras

Digital photography is very popular, but buying a quality digital can be a very expensive endeavor. My first digital was very cheap, and it didn?t work well at all. It was good for taking snapshots outside in the bright sunlight, but that was about it. I took it to a concert once and never bothered to take it again. The pictures were horrible. I know have a better camera, but it did cost me a lot of money. If you want something that works well, but you don?t have a lot of cash to spare, you might consider getting a used digital camera.

One of the places where you would find used cameras aplenty is eBay. There are a large number of models that are stocked there and you would definitely find the one that you are searching for. It might be that you would have to bid for quite some time before you find the right camera at the right price. You just need to have patience, there are a number of models that are there and you are sure to find the one that you are looking for.

While you are purchasing cameras from eBay, it is good to check the details of the product carefully before you opt for it. Go through every single detail that has been listed by the seller. You ought to know the reason for the seller selling it at such a low price.

If you read through the description of the used digital camera, you may find that there is something wrong with it. It might be ok if you know you can get it fixed, but you don?t want to buy something defective if you don?t want the added expense of getting it fixed.

It is recommended that you make the payments through your credit card or Paypal. That would ensure that you get back your money if the product has problems that you were not made aware of by the seller. Take your own time to research a product before making the purchase or it might be that you end up spending more than your budget would permit.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography

In Praise of Digital Photography

In any discipline, you will have what many think of as “the purists”. Purists are those who revere the way things have always been done and view new innovations in the field as upstarts and obviously of poorer quality than the tried and true methods. This is nowhere more true than photography. For decades the film and chemical processing method has undergone continual refinement to achieve higher and higher levels of sophistication and to find higher levels of quality. Small wonder that when the digital revolution came along, “the purists” were, to say the least, a bit snobby about the idea of professional photography moving in this direction.

But there are some genuine reasons to at least incorporate digital technology into your professional photography game plan. These reasons are compelling enough that more and more we are seeing the big studios going all digital. So if you are running an independent photography business or if you are “just” a photography hobbyist (and thank God for the hobbyists), you may have to think through the value of moving to digital processing yourself. The amount of fuss and sheer “stuff” of doing a shoot digitally is dramatically less involved than using the older technologies. Witness how the digital revolution in photography has revolutionized the personal camera world. Now people can take as many pictures as they want and have them to review virtually instantaneously.

The strongest points in favor of digital photography are usually time and cost. Re-shoots can be done quickly and there is the advantage of taking a multitude of shots at practically no expense in order to capture the right one. In a portrait session for example, the customer has the ability to view the images almost immediately, then knowing what to go back to correct. With traditional film, results are not discovered until after processing necessitating a return to the studio. Digital photography can provide the customer with instantaneous results and satisfaction while saving both time and money for the photographer.

If it is the quality that you are worried about, digital photography can deliver. The end results are a photo that is many cases is better than if having used the prior technologies. With the cost saving benefiting both the customer and the photographer, professional photos are more readily sought after now than ever before. This convenience and saving will bring the consumer back more often as they are being provided a quality service at an obtainable price for any budget.

Digital photography, being a child of the internet and the digital revolution that has swept our lives via personal computers, can be delivered in a myriad of ways and at a speed that was unheard of prior to the arrival of this technology. We can deliver the photos via email, by posting them to an online gallery or by burning them to a DVD or CD so the customer can order lots more shots for the same cost and have them delivered in a way that easy to view and store.

Editing has similarly moved from the realm of the back room wizards to something any of us can do due to the sophisticated computer programs, such as Photoshop, that we can use to improve the pictures we take. It is really amazing the effects that can be imposed on a picture with this software. But more importantly we can so much more easily correct minor problems with a photograph so what might have been a lost session can be improved to become acceptable with some clever use of digital editing.

From the snap of the shutter to editing and delivery, digital photography has become a mainstream medium in photography. Although the ‘purist’ might argue, the benefits of digital technologies are undeniable. Customers are accepting of this method in the professional realm as they are familiar with digital in their own personal cameras. They get the enjoyment of their photos quicker, and at a much more reasonable cost. They have the instant gratification of being able to forward pictures to family through the internet with a simple click. Customer satisfaction combined with the fact that digital is easier, faster and much more profitable for the photographer provides a strong platform for digital photography to be here to stay.

Tags: Photography   Posted in Photography