4 fast fixes for your digital photos
By Julie Stoyka
As operations manager for a bustling IT recruitment agency, Mimi Yoon is often called upon to take an active part in her company, such as recording staff outings with the corporate digital camera. While she's far from a novice photographer, like most people, Yoon admits she still encounters problems when using a digital camera and is sometimes unsure about how to fix those photo mistakes. From taking the perfect picture to enhancing your images, here are a few tips that will turn your bad shots into digital masterpieces.
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Quick fix #1: Taking the shot
Focus on a subject
While today's photo-editing software is great for touching up problem areas in your digital images, there is no replacement for taking a good shot. Before you start snapping, make sure that you read the camera manual. Test your camera's features before you hit the company party or family picnic.
After you review your manual, you may still hit a few snags. For Yoon, one of the biggest frustrations is taking an unfocused picture. "If there is even the slightest amount of camera shake, the entire picture is blurry," she laments.
Rohan Laylor, president of Phat Dog Visuals Inc., uses several strategies to take blur-free images. He suggests ignoring the LCD panel (the picture screen) and taking the shot using the regular viewfinder. "To minimize camera shake in low-light situations where you may not have a tripod or a flash, the best thing is to hold your camera tight against your face and hold your breath so you can remain as still as possible while releasing the shutter," he says.
There will be times when you end up with a blurry image no matter what precautions you take. Luckily most photo-editing programs have a sharpening tool. Simply import your image and sharpen it as much as you can without making the image too pixelated. You'll be amazed at the difference even one level of sharpening makes.
Before sharpening image.
After sharpening image.
Zoom in on a subject
Another problem new digital camera users face is the zoom lens. "The inability for a digital camera to zoom beyond three or four times is frustrating," says Yoon. While it's becoming more common to find digital cameras that boast 10X+ optical zooms, Laylor suggests when buying a camera to forget about the zoom capabilities. Instead, make your decision based on the quality of the lens and the overall resolution. "For point-and-shoot digital still cameras, the quality of the zoom has a marginal effect on the performance of the camera," he says. "With a point and shoot, in my opinion, it's better to walk up to the subject and take the picture as close as you can."
Quick fix #2: Fixing the shot
Adjust the contrast
How can you get the best contrast when taking digital photographs? Laylor has some practical suggestions:
| • | Don't shoot into the sun; try to make sure that the sun is behind you. |
| • | If an object is reflecting light toward the camera, block the reflection with your hand. |
| • | If you have a digital SLR, get a lens hood for it. |
With a photo-editing program like Digital Image Suite, even if you find that your image is too dark or too light, you can adjust the contrast:
| • | From the Touchup menu, select Levels Auto Fix. If this does not fix your problem, undo the Auto Fix and go to the next step. |
| • | From the Touchup menu, select Brightness and Contrast. |
| • | Adjust the levels in small increments to achieve the most natural effect. |
Before adjusting contrast.
After adjusting contrast.
Enhance the colors
If you find that the contrast has muted your colors or you want to give your photo a color lift, select Hue and Saturation from the Touchup menu to adjust your color balance.
| • | Select the area that you wish to alter and use the color wheel on the left navigation panel to make hue and saturation adjustments. |
| • | Fine-tune brightness at the end. It will help to enhance the contrast of your altered image. |
Before enhancing colors.
After enhancing colors.
Quick fix #3: Cropping, resizing, and straightening
Cropping a photo is the simplest way to improve the composition of your photograph, allowing the viewer to focus on the main image. We've cropped one image in two different ways; each new image has a different feel and focus. And with Digital Image Suite you can crop any image using guidelines to ensure that you're getting the best composition. Make sure that you save a copy of the original.
Before cropping image.
After cropping image (a).
After cropping image (b).
One word of warning to new digital photographers: An image may appear straight when you take the picture, but may not be 100 percent straight when you actually open the file on your computer. Play with the Straighten Image tool to breathe more life into a stagnant image.
| • | In Digital Image Suite Editor, go to the Format menu and then Straighten Picture. |
| • | Follow the instructions on the left navigation panel. You can select Auto Crop, which will crop the photo to the largest available size. |
You can also use that tilt to your advantage; rotating an image can create a more dynamic effect. In my photo "Dog in a Diner," I rotated the image five degrees, so that the dog seems to be moving forward instead of standing statically.
Before straightening image.
After straightening image.
Quick fix #4: Removing red eye
According to Laylor, red eye is a common problem when shooting indoors or in low light. "When you are inside your pupils get larger, so that when the flash fires, the flash reflects off your retinas." To get rid of red eye, Laylor suggests the following:
| • | Set your flash option to red-eye reduction. "But," he warns, "always remember it's called red-eye reduction and not red-eye elimination." |
| • | Try to get a camera where the flash is as far from the lens as possible. The more distance from the flash to the lens, the less direct the flash that causes red eye will be. That's why professional photographers usually carry a separate flash. |
To fully eliminate red eye, you'll need a photo-editing program—or one of those new digital cameras that does it in-camera. When removing red eye, Laylor enlarges the image as much as he can and then goes in to alter each pixel. Digital Image Suite's Fix Red Eye tool allows you to zoom in to 2,000 percent and get rid of that red in one easy step.
Before correcting red eye.
After correcting red eye.
Article written by Julie Stoyka and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.
