correctmyphotos

July Issue of PictoColor’s PictoScript Newsletter is now available.

Great Color Made Simple-iCorrect EditLab Pro Photoshop Plug-in

I haven’t mentioned PictoColor’s PictoScript Newsletter in this blog before–really don’t know why. We usually publish one, sometimes two, newsletters a month and typically highlight one of our products and provide other information we think might be of benefit to our readers. The title of the July issue is Great Color Made Simple and highlights iCorrect EditLab Pro Photoshop Plug-in. We consider EditLab Pro our “flag ship” product in the iCorrect plug-in series. It is amazing how easy and fast it is to achieve great color with this color correction and editing program. Learn how to quickly color correct you photos and create special effects.

Create special effects with iCorrect EditLab Pro

PictoColor just released iCorrect EditLab Pro 6.0 32/64 bit version for both Win and Mac. It is fully compatible with Photoshop CS5. They also have an introductor offer on the purchase of the new version. Go to www.pictocolor.com/editlabpro.htm for information.

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

Seasons Greetings From PictoColor

Creating holiday greeting cards is easy and fast with CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler. Yesterday, we woke up to 10 inches of new fluffy snow in Burnsville, MN—a perfect time to take a photo and create a greeting card. After transferring the photo to my computer I used CorrectPhoto Editor to crop and color correct it and then added the greeting text with ImageTitler. Here is a step-by-step tutorial you can follow to create your own greeting cards.

Step 1-Edit the photo
As I have said many times, every photo needs to be cropped and color corrected and this shot is no exception. I used CorrectPhoto to crop the photo using the 3×4 cropping format. I chose not to center the ornament so I could add the greeting on the left side of the photo. Using the OneClick color correction feature I clicked on the white and I was done.

CorrectPhoto Editor is an easy way to crop and color correct photos

Step 2-Add Greeting Text to Photo
To add the text I used PictoColor’s ImageTitler because it is so simple (I still have difficulty using Photoshop Elements to add text to photos and it takes too long.)

Add Text and Titles to Photos with ImageTitler

After opening ImageTitler I selected the edited ornament photo and typed in the text I wanted. I then adjusted the text size and moved the text to the location I wanted using the arrow buttons. I then selected the type fonts from the pull down menu to see which one I liked best. After quickly going through the list of 12 available fonts I settled on Century with the Bold and Italics option. The whole process only took a couple of minutes and I was finished with our new greeting card. The quality of the text on the photo is really sharp and crisp and will print quite nicely or used on our websites.

Be Creative
My friend Dick and his wife Joan often send a photo of themselves with their grandchildren. Dick is the software developer that created PictoColor’s CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler and this year he used both to add a creative touch to their annual greeting photo card. The front of the card is the color photo and on the back he created a second version of the photo in Black & White with CorrectPhoto’s OneClick B&W feature and employed a creative use of ImageTitler to identify the ages and parents names to each of the grandchildren. Granted, it did require multiple passes with ImageTitler to add all of the names, but it was still quite fast and easy. And, with the high quality jpeg compression built into ImageTitler the quality of the B&W photo was still quite good.

Be Creative with CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler

Take the time to create your own greeting card.
If you plan to send a photo greeting card or including a photo with your card I suggest you take a few minutes editing and titling the photo. If you are like us you display the cards and photos you receive during the holidays. Most of the photos end up on our refrigerator door and are seen by our holiday guests. Quite often someone will ask, “Who is this?” So, why not add your name to the photo and answer the question before it is asked? Also, most of the photos tend to be dull and lifeless because, a common characteristic of digital camera photos. As I have discussed many times that is a problem that is easy to fix. It is simple and fast to create a photo greeting card you will be proud to send. All it takes is a little time and the right tools.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays-Take photos of your holiday decorations.
Another use of your digital camera is to take photos of your holiday decorations so you can remember what you did last year. No, I am not being facetious.  A month or so ago my wife, Pat, and I were talking about Christmas decorations for this year and asked the obvious question, “What did we do last year?” So, I went to my photo files to locate a picture of last year’s Christmas tree and low and behold I couldn’t find one.  Apparently, I didn’t take one. Well, I got one of those looks that suggested I better not forget this year.  Actually, it really didn’t matter all that much because her tree decorations haven’t varied too much over the past several years. But, this year she came up with a new Christmas tree idea so I made sure I took some photos.  Then I started to play around with them and here is what I did with one of the photos.

A Greeting from Dickens 

Merry Christmas from Dickens-A Greeting Card Created with CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler

Pat decided to simplify the Christmas tree this year and just used poinsettias and red and white stockings with the first initials of family members. Using CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler I created a greeting card with Dickens. (Dickens, our Westie, was actually named after Charles Dickens of Christmas Carol fame.) First, I cropped and color corrected the original photo. Here is the before and after comparison.

When taking the photos I experimented with using both flash and a couple of natural light fluorescents. This shot was taken with the fluorescents which created some undesirable shadows that I didn’t want in the photo. The color was fixed with the OneClick feature in CorrectPhoto.  The next step was to add the text with ImageTitler, a process I wrote about in a previous post on creating greeting cards.

Special Effects with Color

Special effect Black and White photo created with iCorrect EditLab ProApp

I then decided to get a little creative and by using PictoColor’s iCorrect EditLab ProApp I made the black and white with color accent photo above.  Here is the screen shot of EditLab ProApp.

PictoColor's iCorrect EditLab ProApp Screen Shot for special effect

Using the one click auto black and white feature I first converted the photo into B&W.  Since the color information is still retained I then click on one of the red stockings to select the hue (color) I wanted to restore.  It only took a couple of seconds to do this using iCorrect EditLab ProApp.  It is a standalone application that was created for digital photographers with lots of photos to color correct and it probably overkill for most amateurs. But, if you use Photoshop or Elements there is a plug-in version, iCorrect EditLab Pro plug-in that is great for making fast and accurate color corrections special effects like the Christmas greeting example.

Lessons learned
The primary point of this post is to suggest or remind you to take photos of things like holiday decorations so you won’t forget what you did. Your spouse will thank you. The second point is that you can have creative fun with the photos you take.

Well, if you have been watching the weather in the US you know that the upper Midwest is getting hit with significant snow falls during the Christmas holiday and many people will have to cancel holiday plans and stay home or at least delay their departure. In Burnsville, MN we had 7 inches overnight and expect up to 20 inches before it stops on Saturday.  I usually can’t resist taking snow pictures so you might see a few in a future post.  If you find yourself stranded this weekend and you get bored why not sit down at your computer and edit and organize your photos.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

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.

Snapshots to Great Shots  is a new photo tips tutorial written by Craig of PictoColor.

Sometimes, the most interesting images can come from unexpected sources.  All it takes is a little creativity, the right tools, and, in most cases, a few extra minutes.

Turning Snapshots into Greatshots

We can turn this ordinary snapshot into a stunning portrait in minutes with the simple, intuitive tools found in CorrectPhoto and iCorrect EditLab Pro Plug-in or iCorrect EditLab ProApp).  The tutorial takes you step by step through the process. (http://www.pictocolor.com/turning_snapshots_into_greatshots_tutorial.htm)

 If you prefer Black and White instead of a Sepia Tone iCorrect EditLab Pro all it takes is a click of the mouse with iCorrect EditLab Pro.

Black and White with iCorrect EditLab Pro

 Yes, all it takes is a little imagination and the right tools and you can easily turn and average snapshot into a great shot. Read the full tutorial at http://www.pictocolor.com/turning_snapshots_into_greatshots_tutorial.htm.

Craig at PictoColor, www.pictocolor.com