What to do when editing digital photographs
Image editors (also known as photo editors) allow you to create and modify graphics and photographic images. This includes tasks such as painting and drawing, color correction, photo enhancement, creating special effects, converting images, and adding text to graphics. Your image editor will probably be your most frequently used tool for working with graphics so it should be flexible and intuitive. Many software programs are available for enhancing and otherwise working with bitmap images, but unless they can perform all of the tasks above sufficiently, they should only be considered as companion tools to your primary photo editing application.
The display resolution of a digital television or computer display typically refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. Some commentators also use this term to indicate a range of input formats that the display’s input electronics will accept and often include formats greater than the screen’s native grid size even though they have to be down-scaled to match the screen’s parameters. An example of pixel shape affecting “resolution” or perceived sharpness is displaying more information in a smaller area using a higher resolution, which makes the image much clearer. However, newer LCD displays and such are fixed at a certain resolution; making the resolution lower on these kinds of screens will greatly decrease sharpness, as an interpolation process is used to “fix” the non-native resolution input into the displays native resolution output.
There are many different photo-editing programs out there. Many people believe that the level of difficulty of the program indicates its quality. However, many programs are quite simple to use and are of high quality. Several programs will make adjustments for you based on one entered specification, whereas others require you to perform several steps yourself to get the desired effect. Depending on what you’re most comfortable with, whether it’s pressing a button and having the rest done for you, or doing it all yourself, not every program will be for you. Choose according to your level of experience and your needs in the program.
When photos are saved on a computer, they frequently become slightly blurred. They are not necessarily so blurry that you can’t see the image; they are merely not as clear as they could be. Just about all photo-editing programs have a tool that allows you to sharpen your image. When your image could use some sharper detail, this is the option you want to use. It makes for a much better-looking picture. Some cameras have the tool built in, though sometimes that is not enough, and it may have to be done again with your editing software.
Sharpen filters bring out detail in images by increasing the contrast of pixels next to one another. More advanced image editing programs offer several options such as Sharpen, Sharpen More, Sharpen Edges and Unsharp Mask (USM). Unsharp Mask gives you a lot of control over how an image is sharpened. Sometimes a photo will benefit from selective sharpening. You select an area with a programs selection tool and only sharpen the area. The important thing is not sharpen an image too much. The sharpening tool that is most useful for photographs is the Unsharp Mask, now available in most raster programs. The Unsharp Mask searches through your image looking for where colors change, and sharpens those areas. The Unsharp Mask is superior to any other sharpening because it makes decisions based on adjacent pixels, not random color changes, so it usually can find and sharpen just the true edges of color areas.
Digital cameras, even relatively cheap ones, take incredibly large images. However, looks can be deceiving and, while the pictures may look big onscreen, they may look disappointing when you try to adjust them for printing, emailing, or long term storage. They’re best left untouched, if possible, so that you have more flexibility later. All photo editing software will have a command for changing the pixel dimensions of an image. Look for a command called “Image Size,” “Resize,” or “Resample.” When you use this command you will be presented with a dialog box for entering the exact pixels you wish to use.
Cropping is the process of selecting and removing a portion of an image to create focus or strengthen its composition. Even the best photographers will often get back to their computers to view their photos and find that they are not ideal for one reason or another including distracting background elements, framing mistakes, or unbalanced images. While the temptation might be to delete such images the beauty of shooting in the digital format is that editing images after shooting them is relatively quick and easy. Cropping is one option for fixing such problems. This is usually done in photo editing software. Cropping images give you a second chance to frame your images. While you can never really add to the photograph to put more space around your subject (or recover the ear you clipped), cropping the image even tighter can take the focus away from the clipped part of your subject and make the image quite dynamic.
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