correctmyphotos

This video is the fourth in my series on Better eBay Photos for Better eBay Sales. It describes how to easily add titles to photos with PictoColor’s ImageTitler windows application.

You can find all of the videos in the Better eBay Photos for Better eBay Sales in the blog or at www.correctphoto.com/ebayphoto.htm. Information on ImageTitler can be found at www.imagetitler.com

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

ImageTitler_tutorial-05

Image Titler

Wayne
www.imagetitler.com, www. correctphoto.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

But, Fix the Color Before You Send It.
Dave B., a friend of mine, was in Washington DC this summer and took a stunning photo of lightning striking a building near the US Capital with his iPhone camera. It is a great photo and an example of being at the right place at the right time. And, it is a picture worth sharing with friends. When it appeared in my email inbox I couldn’t resist seeing what OneClick Color technology would do to improve it. Here is the before and after comparison using OneClick to remove the magenta color cast increasing the brightness in the shadows.

Picture on Right was color corrected with iCorrect OneClick iPhone App

Fix the color of iPhone photos before sending with iCorrect OneClick iPhone App
If Dave had iCorrect OneClick iPhone App on his iPhone he could have fixed the color before he sent the picture to his friends. And, it would have only taken a few extra seconds.

Freshair Software developed iCorrect OneClick iPhone App using PictoColor’s OneClick Color Technology. For more information go to http://www.freshairsoftware.com/iPhoneApplications/iCorrect/index.html

Creating a Sepia tone photo with OneClick
iCorrect OneClick technology is also available in iCorrect OneClick Plug-in for Photoshop and Elements and in CorrectPhoto Editor. One of the features of OneClick is the ability to create stunning Black and White and Sepia tone photos with one click of the mouse. Here is a sepia rendition of the lightning photo.  The first thought that popped into my mind when I saw the photo was that maybe God was sending a message to Washington. But, what was he saying?  I added the title using ImageTitler.

Create Sepia tone photo with OneClick-Add Title with ImageTitler

Most Photos can be improved with OneClick.
The point of this post is to reiterate the fact that most photos can and should be improved before sending them to your friends or uploading to Facebook. And, it is easy to do if you have an iPhone with iCorrect OneClick App or Photoshop Elements with iCorrect OneClick plug-in or CorrectPhoto with OneClick technology. I often go one step further and add a title or caption to the photo.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com, www.imagetitler.com, www.oneclickcolor.com

Turn a not so good photo shot into a memory before you post it on your Facebook page.

Create a Memory by Cropping and Color Correcting using CorrectPhoto

Last weekend at Kathryn’s 16th birthday party I took the photo on the left. While I captured Kathryn’s beautiful smiling face, Justine’s bemused look and someone’s (maybe mine) big toes detracted from her joyful moment. I wanted to post a photo on my Facebook page for Kathryn’s birthday and this shot was the best shot of her in the batch of photos I took. So, I created the memory of her birthday with a little cropping and color correction using CorrectPhoto.

Making a Portrait Memory-Crop the photo 

Crop photo with 3x4 cropping format

I used the 3×4 Portrait cropping format to frame Kathryn and eliminate the rest of the picture. Since I was going to upload the photo to Facebook I used the 3×4 format which is the best format for Facebook and is the same aspect ratio as the camera chip. If you were going to make a print for framing I would have used the 4×6 or 5×7 cropping format. And, with the OneClick color correction feature in CorrectPhoto I was able to make Kathryn come alive by a single click.

Resize before you upload to Facebook
I always resize (or scale) my photos to 640 X 480, the ideal Facebook size, before I upload the photos. It is a simple step in CorrectPhoto and the resizing algorithm is much better that Facebook’s.

Resize to 640 x 480 before uploading to Facebook

Add a title with ImageTitler
As an added touch I added a title to the photo before posting it. I used a simple program called ImageTitler to do this.

Add titles to photos with ImageTitler

Here is the final photo memory of Kathryn on her 16th birthday as posted on Facebook.

Facebook Photo-Edited with CorrectPhoto and titled with ImageTitler

It only took a few minutes with the right tools to create this memorable photo of Kathryn out of a mediocre photo. Actually, I think I will also make a print and frame it.

When the world (at least your Facebook Friends) are going to see the photos you post why not take a few minutes to turn them into photos you can be proud to share. It is really easy and fast and anyone can do it.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com, www.imagetitler.com