Fast fixes for your photos

Turn imperfect pictures into professional-looking photos

By Julie Stoyka

As operations manager for a bustling IT recruitment agency in the Toronto area, 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 photo mistakes.

If Yoon’s dilemma sounds familiar, you can benefit from the following tips that will help you take perfect pictures, enhance your images and turn your bad shots into digital masterpieces.

Quick fix #1: Taking the shot
Quick fix #2: Fixing the shot
Quick fix #3: Cropping, resizing and straightening
Quick fix #4: Removing red-eye

Quick fix #1: Taking the shot

Focus on a subject

While today’s photo-editing software is great for touching up problems in your digital images, there is no replacement for taking a good shot. Before you start snapping, make sure 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 using the regular viewfinder to take the shot.

“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. You’ll be amazed at the difference even one level of sharpening makes.

Zoom in on a subject

Another problem new digital-camera users face is the zoom lens. “The inability of 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 10×+ optical zooms, Laylor suggests forgetting about the zoom capabilities when buying a camera. 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, 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 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 such as Windows Photo Gallery, which comes with Windows Vista or Windows Live Photo Gallery, a free download, even if you find that your image is too dark or too light, you can adjust the contrast.

To do this in Windows Photo Gallery, open the program by clicking Start > All Programs > Windows Photo Gallery. Click on the photo you want to adjust and choose Fix. From the right-hand menu choose Adjust Exposure. Move the slider in either direction until the desired exposure is achieved.

Enhance the colours

If you find that the contrast has muted your colours or you want to give your photo a colour lift, select Adjust Colour from the Fix menu to adjust your colour balance. Use the sliders to adjust Colour Temperature, Tint and Saturation.

Quick fix #3: Cropping, resizing and straightening

Cropping a photo is the simplest way to improve the composition of your photograph. The technique allows the viewer to focus on the main image.

One word of warning to new digital photographers: an image may appear straight when you take the picture, but it may not be 100 per cent straight when you open the file on your computer.

To crop images in Windows Photo Gallery, select Fix and then Crop Picture. The crop tool allows you to either resize the photo manually or choose from a drop-down list of commonly used proportions (such as 4” × 6”, which is the standard size for printed photographs).

Quick fix #4: Removing red-eye

According to Laylor, red-eye commonly occurs when you’re shooting indoors or in low light. “When you are inside, your pupils get larger, so when the flash fires, the flash reflects off your retinas.” To get rid of red-eye, Laylor suggests the following techniques.

• 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 greater the 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 eliminate red-eye, you’ll need a photo-editing program or a digital camera that does it in-camera. When removing red-eye, Laylor enlarges the image as much as he can and then alters each pixel. Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Live Photo Gallery both have Fix Red-Eye tools that allow you to zoom in and get rid of that red in one easy step.