correctmyphotos

Heather finds a new tool for photography kit!
When Heather, a fellow Rotarian, sent me some photos she took at a recent Rotary event I was somewhat surprise at the quality of the photos. I knew she had an expensive digital camera (better than mine) but the color was really dull and like most digital photos needed a bit of cropping. When I mentioned this to Heather she sort of shrugged and admitted that she was disappointed in the photo quality, but really didn’t know what to do about it.  When I asked her if she had photo editing software she shrugged and said no and admitted that she really didn’t have the patience or time to learn a complicated editing program. So, I told her about CorrectPhoto (surprised?).  She tried it and here is what she had to say about her experience.

“Next to my camera, CorrectPhoto is the most useful tool in my photography kit.”
Heather V., Apple Valley, MN writes about her first experience with CorrectPhoto.

“I’ve got a few semesters of college training under my belt, an expensive camera (thanks, Husband!) and plenty of ambition. But for some reason, my photos never seem to turn out quite right. They’re too blue-ish or blurry, not bright enough or too contrast-y. I’ve thought about purchasing special software to help correct my digital snapshots, but was always intimidated by their price and complexity. Until I found PictoColor’s CorrectPhoto, that is.

OneClick Color Correction
One of the easiest, yet most useful, aspects of CorrectPhoto is one-click color correction. All I have to do is find something in the picture that is black, white or gray and click on it – the rest of the photo automatically adjusts to that color scheme. Brilliant. Check out the photo of when I met my new puppy for the first time; it was taken indoors with no flash, so it was very yellow. In CorrectPhoto, I clicked on my white hoodie and the rest of the photo was “fixed” to take out the weird tones. The photo still isn’t great (the dog kept squirming!), but the color is much more accurate now.

Philly (dog) and Heather-Before/After OneClick Color

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Using Sepia Tone and Color Photos Creates a Dramatic Affect
Yesterday it was a rainy day in Minnesota and I decided to spend the afternoon at a concert given by the Dakota Valley Symphony a the new Burnsville (MN) Peforming Arts Center. The final selection was Dakotah, a sympony created by a local composer, Randall Stokes, a number of years ago commemorating the history of Burnsville. The symphony was accompanied by a video slide presentaion with photos of the Burnsville area from the 1800′s through today. Many of the early photos were sepia tone so, for continuity, many of the current color photos were converted to sepia tone.

As I listened to the music and watch the slide show I couldn’t help wonder how long it took the person who created the slide show to convert the color photos to sepia tone. I, of course, new the easy way with iCorrect OneClick, but decided to see if I could figure out how to do it in Photoshop Elements. After several minutes I gave up and used iCorrect OneClick Plug-in which accomplished the task of converting a color photo to sepia tone with one click. If anyone knows an easy way to create sepia tone photos in Photoshop Elements let me know and I will post the instructions.

This was the first time I saw sepia tone images used in a slide presentation and I was impressed with the way the photographer used this effect.

Wayne, www.pictocolor.com, www.correctphoto.com.

Or, What to do when you retire.

My friend Bob is a fascinating guy. After a career teaching math at both the Junior High and High School in Burnsville, MN he started a second career as a financial advisor.  Now, in “semi-retirement” living in the Villages in Florida for six months out of the year he decided to become an artist.  After a few lessons he quickly surpassed the instructor and has become quite good. His subject matter so far has been interesting landscapes painted from photos. When Bob and his wife were back in Minnesota for the Christmas Holidays I told him about The Burnsville Rotary Club’s upcoming Concert For Caring Fund Raiser and he volunteered to paint a picture of a Burnsville scene and donate it to the silent auction. The catch was that I had to select the “Burnsville Scene” for him to paint and provide the photo. I gave him two to choose from, a winter shot of our Centennial Park garden and a fall scene of Gemstone Park.  Bob chose the more colorful photo (not a surprise-who wants to paint snow when you are in Florida) and here is a photo of the painting. Bob is even donating the frame. Below Bob’s painting I included the photo Bob used. You can see that Bob added his own creative touches. It seems he prefers blue skies and blue water. Maybe he is spending too much time in Florida.

Gemstone Park, Artist: Bob Karp 2009Gemstone Park Photo

I took this photo on my way to the office last fall. It was a beautiful fall morning with bright sun and no wind. As I drove past I couldn’t resist taking the photo even though I had to go back home to pick up my camera.  Since one never knows when something worth photographing is going to pop up it is a good idea to keep you camera charged up and in the car. And, who would have thought that this photo would turn into wonderful painting by a new artist.

Gemstone Park Photo

Bob started painting pictures about the time he turned 70. So, we are never to old to learn something new. At his point I plan to continue taking the pictures and let Bob do the painting. But, one never knows. Something to think about.

Wayne http://www.correctphoto.com

BTW, I did use CorrectPhoto with OneClick Color to make the color right before I made the print to give to Bob.

Gemstone Park-Original Photo before CorrectPhoto OneClick Color

Ritz Camera and Proex Photo Stores Closing–Try Phopar or Sam’s Club

Yesterday morning in the business section of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune there was an article announcing the closing of 19 out of 24 Ritz Camera and Proex (owned by Ritz) in the Twin City area. That is too bad since Ritz was one of the online/retail photo printers we recommended on the CorrectPhoto Website.  I like to fix my photos and then upload them to either Ritz or Wal-Mart Sam’s Club  and pick them up. Recently, I have been using Sam’s club more frequently because of the cost and Sam’s Club was a bit more convenient.  Maybe that is why Ritz is closing stores. So, I guess I will continue to use Sam’s Club when I want prints in a few hours or a day or so.

Don’t Wait in Line at Sam’s Photo Kiosks (or any other for that matter).
Another observation of mine that was reinforced as my wife and I entered Sam’s Club yesterday is that one should never waste time using or waiting for a Photo Kiosk to order prints. There must have been a half dozen people waiting “patiently” while the people at the kiosks selected, tried to edit, and order prints. If you have ever used one you will know what I mean so I won’t get into the details.  My suggestion is that you edit your photos on your own computer and then upload them to your favorite photo service and either have them mailed to you or pick them up.  You can find a number of posts in this blog on editing your photos so I won’t get into the editing options. Suffice it to say that you will save a lot of time and end up with better prints if you follow this advice.

Which Online Photo Service Should You Use?
There are, of course, many to choose from. If you want to pick up your prints in a couple of hours or the next day then I would suggest Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart because they are generally conveniently located in both large and small communities and they certainly aren’t going to go out of business. And, more importantly, the quality of the prints made with the Fuji printers is very good. Better yet, you can’t beat the price. But, remember that it will cost more if you want your prints in an hour or two.

Now, if you can be a little patient and wait for the mail you can use Shutterfly or one of my favorite labs located in Appleton, Wisconsin, Phopar.  Phopar is owned and operated by Ozzie Rapp, a friend of ours for many years. While you might pay a little more it is worth it for the extra care and attention Ozzie and his staff will give you. And, besides that Ozzie is a really nice guy with a bunch of grandchildren that adore him.

After reading the Ritz announcement and visiting Sam’s Club I just had to share my opinion on photo kiosks. Obviously, not everyone will agree with my opinion, particularly the stores that provide them and the manufacturers that produce them. So, try both approaches to ordering prints and make up your own mind.

Wayne     http://www.correctphoto.com

Why are real estate photos on the Internet so dull and lifeless? Because realtors skip an important step–fixing the photo.
I had wondered why the online real estate photos were so bad so I asked my friend Barb, a realtor in the Twin Cities area, to lead me through the process she follows after she lands a new listing.  With signed contract in hand she takes her trusty digital camera and takes the photos she will use to list the property on the online MLS service and for “sell sheets”. Once back at her office she downloads the files to her computer, selects the ones she wants to display and uploads them (full resolution) to the Northstar MLS service.

So, what step did she miss? You guessed it! She didn’t fix them. If you have followed my blog you will know my mantra, “Every photo needs to be cropped and color corrected.”  So, why didn’t Barb take that extra step? Would it take too much time? Did she know how?” Nobody does it.  Didn’t she care?

Knowing Barb there was little doubt that she cares. She is a professional and really does want to show off her properties in the best way possible. I saw that from the sell sheets she had printed by a professional printer (who fixed the photos before printing). But, she just didn’t know how to do it and didn’t want to take the time to learn and use a complicated photo editing software program.

This photo was cropped, color corrected, and resized before uploading

Crop, Correct Color, and Resize Before Uploading to MLS
Barb was concerned that the front veiw of a recent listing was dull and fuzzy so I took the original file image and opened it in CorrectPhoto, cropped it to get rid of the front of the car and driveway and color corrected it with OneClick.  And, the picture was sharp but so was the original photo. So why was it fuzzy on the MLS site? I suspected the answer-the scaling algorithm on the MLS site wasn’t very good and it turned out I was right. So, before uploading I resized the corrected photo to 640×480 and you can see the result. Unfortunately, I don’t have the orginal to show a comparison, but trust me this one is a lot better. I took another one of the photos from the listing and simply color corrected it and here is the comparison.

Real Estate Photos Need to be Color Corrected

In summary, every real estate photo needs the following before uploading to the MLS Service:  1. Cropped, 2. Color Corrected, 3. Resized. 

If you know how to use Photoshop Elements you may certainly use it, however, I would suggest getting  PictoColor’s iCorrect OneClick Plug-in for the color correction. My preference (of course) is CorrectPhoto because it is the easiest for most of us to use and has OneClick Color built in. It took me about 45 seconds to crop, color correct, and resize the house picture.

If you are a realtor I would recommend you take the time to fix the photo before you upload.  In today’s market you need to show off your listings to attract potential buyers. If you are not a realtor tell them how to make their listings better. They will thank you for the tip.

You can bet that Barb’s listings from now on are going to have the best photos of all her collegues. That is until they decide to take a few minutes to fix their photos.

Wayne http://correctphoto.com/CorrectPhoto_Realtor.htm