So I guess I consider my self a little bit of a shutterbug. Although I still don’t know how to set my flash right or the correct shutter speed for the right moment, I do like to take pictures of my family and friends. Occasionally I take a good one.
About 5 years ago I got my first digital camera and haven’t looked back since. This means that all my pictures are now on my computer and not stuck in a box in my basement (which isn’t good either). I don’t want all my hard work to just sit around collecting digital dust, so I decided to do something about it. I thought picture albums, but didn’t want to go get the pictures developed and have to buy the albums and anyway, after a few years the plastic on those things start to yellow anyway. I wanted something better.
Now in this new day and age, you can actually get a professional book made with your digital photos. There are websites that you can download your pictures to and share them or get them developed or other stuff. I tried photobucket but didn’t like what they had to offer. Flickr had much better options in professional looking books and I decided to use them.
I want to take small steps, so I downloaded about 50 pictures all from last year. All of these were taken using different cameras and some not even taken by me. A lot of them are not very good. Now this is where I would like everyone’s help. I’m no good at editing photos. I don’t even have a photo editing software, but would be willing to spend some money to get some (say around $50 max) as long as it doesn’t have a large learning curve. What can I do to edit my pictures before I submit them to be made into a photo album?
I’ll open the photos to comments or you can leave your suggestions here. After I know a little bit more on what to do and am ready to submit the photos, I’ll move them all back to privet viewing. Hopefully I can get this little project done by April for my wife’s birthday.
If you’re using Windows XP, you may already have photo-editing software installed. On the Start panel, open All Programs and look for Microsoft Picture-it!, which isn’t too bad. Most of your pictures just need cropping. I only saw a couple that looked washed-out from too much light, and another couple that were too dark. The contrast can be adjusted in Picture-it.
To me, the two most glaring flaws were when something appeared to be growing out of a person’s head, and when it wasn’t clear what you were trying to take a picture of…the person or the background. These are only my opinions, of course.
I’d crop practically every picture, if nothing else. Cropping is the best editing tool of them all, IMO: the most improvement for the least work. And don’t worry about cropping them in proportion; just crop where it needs it. (Am assuming your online album doesn’t have pre-defined spaces that will look odd if a picture is not precisely 3x5 or 4x6, etc.
As for editing, your computer might have come with editing software on which you can do basic edits like auto-fix color and contrast, and of course, crop. Most or all HP and Compaq machines come with it. Your camera probably came with a disk also, or maybe you can download it from the manufacturer’s site. If not, there’s also Picasa’s free editing program, which isn’t half bad. If you want to buy something, you could get Photoshop Elements or PaintShop Pro, but those are overkill unless you’re really going to get into doing more than just cropping or auto-fix.
Auto-correct is useful, I’d say, but to be used in moderation. It’s a set of rules which ostensibly try to bring out the best in your photograph - but that’s according to what the software considers best, and usually only works on a limited subset of shots.
Things that I play with quite a lot while trying to bring out the best in photographs (links to photographs where I feel that the change made the photograph better):
With Picasa, which I use quite a lot, many of these things are fairly simple, and more importantly, easy to undo. If I need something more powerful, I fire up Paint Shop Pro, but Picasa handles most of my day-to-day photography with no problems at all.
Picasa is the best free photo-editing and organizing software for beginners, IMHO. Your photos range from good to not-so-good and there are a range of common problems that can be corrected easily with Picasa.
Your first step should be cropping. I’ve found that with people shots, the closer the better. Provide background context where appropriate but otherwise get in close. This is best done in-camera at the time of the photo, but cropping will do after the fact.
Also, it looks like you aren’t paying enough attention to the background. In various photos, you have trees, lamps and a fence post growing out of various people’s heads. Try to be more aware of your surroundings and keep backgrounds simple to avoid distraction. I know this won’t help with many of your photos, but it will be useful to keep in mind for the future.
As for technical problems such as underexposure and colour-casts, Picasa provides a number of easy options for correction like the fill-light slider to brighten up some of the dark backgrounds from your flash photos.
If you want more flexibility and power, you might consider Photoshop Elements. It’s commercial software and over your $50 budget, but it’s well worth it if you want to delve more deeply into photo editing.
Doesn’t flickr have the Picnik picture editing software? You should check the icons above your photos in flickr. I’m not sure if it’s available to free accounts, but if it’s there use it. It’s a pretty handy and easy to use picture editing software. You can crop, play with the exposure and correct red-eye.
Gimp is a very powerful and flexible image editor with a terrible, counter-intuitive interface. I periodically try out new distros because I recognize Gimp’s capabilities but I just can’t get around this liability.
Of course, I freely admit that I may just have been brainwashed by years of Photoshop use and that it might be easier for a beginner to adapt to the Gimp’s chaotic UI. Regardless, expect a much steeper learning curve for Gimp than for PS Elements or Picasa.
Yes, a very common fault with family pictures is not using all the picture with what’s really interesting, rather than just background. I go the other way: here’s a 30-year-old picture of my oldest son. But you need either to get close, or use a long lens: I think I was using something like a 135mm lens on a 35mm SLR for that picture. With today’s point-and-shoot digital cameras, you get that kind of perspective by zooming in on the subject.
