correctmyphotos

Did you get snowed in recently? There certainly were a lot of people around the USA that were treated to record snow falls these past couple of weeks. In the Twin Cities area we were blessed with another 10-12 inches over the last week and the piles are getting pretty high with no melting in site. If you are like me you can’t resist taking “snow photos”.  And, you will probably want to send a few shots to your friends in the warmer parts of the country to show them what they are missing.

Yesterday morning we were treated to one of those beautiful winter spectacles called Hoar Frost. (Frozen dew that forms a white coating on a surface. It is also called white frost.). I took the above shot out of my car window (I did stop the car) on my way to the store.  After cropping (16×9 TV format) and color correcting the photo I clicked on the sepia tone button in CorrectPhoto to create the above image.

Here is the color version for comparison. You can decide which version you prefer.

Snow photo was cropped and color corrected using CorrectPhoto Editor.

Here is another example of a snow shot that was cropped (4×6 portrait), color corrected, and converted to a sepia tone photo.

For the most part, snow photos are pretty dull color wise.  So, turning a few of your favorite shots into a sepia tone images might just make them a bit more interesting. And, it is easy to do.

It seems that much of the US has been blessed with snow and bad weather over the past few weeks. Maybe taking a few photos and applying some creative touches to them will ease the problems the weather has created.

Wayne http://www.correctphoto.com/index.html

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

Happy Holidays from Dickens
You can create your own holiday greeting cards in a few short minutes. Well, maybe we’ll start the timer after you decide on the photo you want to use. That might take a bit longer. For this example I chose a photo I took of Dickens last Christmas wearing his Santa outfit. (He really wasn’t crazy about wearing it, but was a good sport about it.)

Create your own greeting card-Dicken's had some help creating his

 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 4×6 cropping format. I chose not to center Dickens so I could add the greeting on the right side of the photo. Using the OneClick color correction feature I clicked on the white portion of his hat and I was done.

Crop and color correct the photo-I used CorrectPhoto Editor

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 Titles and Text to Photos with ImageTitler by PictoColor

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Is the Color the Best it can be?
The other day while picking up some printing a neighbor, Rich, was picking up a nice glossy photo poster of a house he is selling. Rich is a realtor and a very good one. He showed be the poster and while I was impressed with the layout and the composition of the photos I was struck with how “dull” they looked. Of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and said, ‘Nice layout, but the colors are wrong.” Rich actually agreed with me (or humored me) but said he really didn’t have time (or knowledge) to do anything about it. He is like the majority of real estate professionals that use their own “point and shoot” digital camera to photos to post on the web and for promotional material. They don’t or can’t afford to use a professional photographer and, as a result, most of the  real estate photos you see on the web are not very good.  That is really too bad since the first impression most people searching for a house is made from the photos posted on the web.

You don’t have to be a pro to take good real estate photos.

Better Color Makes the House More Interesting

 Here is an typical example of a home listing in the Minneapolis area. Using CorrectPhoto with OneClick color I made the color better in less than two seconds. The composition of the photo is pretty good so I did not crop the photo. Interior shots are generally the worst both from a composition and color standpoint.  The house lights and camera flash make for a bad combination for good color.  By getting rid of the color cast and boosting the brightness and saturation a little make the kitchen much more appealing. (continue reading…)

So far in this series of posts on Better eBay Sales with Better Photos I described the various photo shoot setups for photographing items for sale. I have been using my Stangl Bird collection as examples because they are representative of the items many people are selling on eBay and because I plan to start liquidating my bird collection. In fact, yesterday afternoon I photographed 20 birds using the light tent. I took about 5 or 6 shots of each of different views (side, back, front, base, etc.) so the potential buyer can see the characteristics, quality and flaws, if any, of the item.  As I look at other birds for sale on eBay I find that most of them are poorly presented and one would have difficultly deciding if they are worth buying.  If you have followed this series of posts you might recall the example I used in the first post comparing a bird photo I “borrowed” from an eBay listing with a photo I took of a similar bird in my collection. Here it is again, however, with a new photo I took using the light tent configuration with artificial lighting. 

Which Stangl Hummingbird would you buy?

UseMultiple Views for Greater Sales Impact
One of the benefits of digital photography is that you can easily take many shots of an item making it easier for the prospective buyer to make a buy decision. Taking mutiple photos of an object is real easy once you have the photo setup. Here is a composite of photos of the bird from different angles. (Note: the composite photo is for illustration only. You will want to show individual photos in your listing.)

Use Multiple Photos to Show Off Your eBay Listing

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