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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What will our Gourmet Group do with the photos?
Last weekend our gourmet group (a group of 4 couples– the guys are the chefs) went to one of the couple’s cabin in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota. The theme of the meal we prepared on Saturday was Greek and it was, if I may so, outstanding and we had a great time. The floor of the canyon is 5000 feet above sea level so there was still a fair amount of snow around and the famous waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls, was frozen solid.  As usual, I am the one in the group that takes the most photos and I give a CD of edited photos to the other couples. Normally, I select the photos worth editing, crop to a 4×6 print format, color correct, and save the fixed photo. But then I remembered that Ron and Karlyn just bought a new super HDTV set and might enjoy viewing the photos in HDTV format. But, Dick and Hope will most likely want to get 4×6 prints made at Sam’s Club and I suspected Bill would just look at them his laptop and maybe send a few to their kids in Dallas. Or, he might pick one of the photos to create a “post card print” to put in the new 5×7 frame he and Mary Kay received as a hostess gift. So, what did I do

 Crop To Digital Camera 3×4 Format and Color Correct.
If you have previously visited my blog you know that I believe every photo needs to be cropped and color corrected. I decided to go through the photos, discard the bad ones, color correct  the remaining photos, and leave them in the 3×4 format, the aspect ratio of the digital camera.  If there was an obvious crop that should be done, such as removing someone’s elbow from the photo, I cropped it, however I used the 3×4 cropping format that is in the new version of  CorrectPhoto. Now when I give the photos to others they can crop to whatever format they desire. And, since they all have CorrectPhoto and know how to use it they can crop to whatever format they want. BTW, none of these guys would have the interest or patience to learn a complicated editing program.  Here is a set of photos showing several different cropping formats. 

Bridal Veil Falls, Before and After Color Correction, No Crop Crop to Digital Camera 3x4 Format Crop to 3x4 digital camera format

 Crop to 4×6 Format 

Crop to 4x6 print format Crop to 16x9 HDTV FormatCrop to HDTV 16x9 Format

Crop to 5×7 Portrait Format  Make a Post Card
And, if you want to finish the post card with some text it would look like this.

Bridal Veil Falls, 5x7 with text

 If you do not know how you or your friends will show the photos you take I suggest you Crop to the standard digital camera 3×4 format (or 4×3 if you have a vertical shot) and color correct. then you can crop to the desired format and create a set of photos for the specific use.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

Photo Editing can be fun—if it is easy!

Yesterday is was 10 degrees below zero as I sat on our porch enjoying the warmth of the sun. Inside my wife’s colorful orchids where blooming and outside the snow was cold and white. I couldn’t resist taking a couple of photos with my trusty old Canon G5 in Auto Mode—actually I took about 20 shots.

Orchids & Snow-Photo Editing Can be Fun

And, if you have visited this blog before you know that I believe every digital photo can benefit from a little cropping and color correcting.  I, of course, used CorrectPhoto because it is easy and I have the thumbnail images available to quickly pick the photo I want to edit.  The OneClick color correction feature of CorrectPhoto makes color correction a snap.  But, if you have Photoshop Elements and know how to use it go ahead edit the photo with it.  You can add the OneClick color correction with iCorrect OneClick Plug-inand get the same quick color correction that is in CorrectPhoto. (continue reading…)

I used CorrectPhoto to crop and color correct the photo to create the portrait photo of Kathryn.  If you have and are familiar with Photoshop Elements you can certainly use it to crop the photo.  I discussed the basics of photo cropping in an earlier post, “Cropping Photos. How?”. 

Yes, all digital photos can benefit from a little cropping and color correction. There are some photos have an imbedded memory that can be released with the Cropping Tool of a photo editing program. Take a new look at some of your discarded photos and see if you can find a memory.

Wayne http://correctphoto.com

Every Digital Photo Needs to Be Cropped! Why?

Because we can!
The first reason is “because we can” and that is one of the real benefits and joys of digital photography. With a little cropping we can turn an average picture into a memorable photo. With film photography we basically had to accept what we got when we picked up our prints. How many times have you wished you could retake the shot and not include someones elbow or half a face? With a digital image we can easily trim or eliminate portions of the picture we don’t want or need.

Cropping Out the Fence Makes This a Better Picture

Aspect Ratios Vary
The aspect ratio (the ratio of the width to the height of the picture) of a digital camera sensor is typically 4×3 (1.33). The aspect ratio of a 4×6 (6×4) print is 1.5. The format for HDTV is 16×9 or 1.78. so, if you want 4×6 prints you should decide what portions of the image should be cut off and not let the printer software decide for you. Here is an example of what can happen if you let the printer decide where to crop the photo–And, it is my head that go clipped!

Crop photos before you send them to the printer

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