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

15 Star Flag at Floyd Monument, Sioux City, IA

This past weekend my wife and I took a little road trip from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls, SD by way of Sioux City, IA (Nebraska and SD).  Why? Well, when our trip to a friend’s cabin in Spearfish Canyon, SD was cancelled we decided to take a couple of days and see the eastern part of South Dakota. And, another friend suggested we go to Sioux City where South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska join.  So we did and that is where we learned about Sergeant Charles Floyd. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know who he is. No one I ask, even those who grew up in SD and IA, know who he is either.

Sergeant Floyd’s Claim to Fame—He Died!
That’s right. Sergeant Floyd’s claim to fame is that he was the only person to die on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Quite remarkable that only one person died on that famous trip across the US. Here is a link if you are interested in learning more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Floyd_(explorer)

The 15 Star Flag—The Digital Photo Lesson
The flag flying over Floyd’s Monument has 15 stars representing the 15 states comprising the US when Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  Trying to capture the flag to show all of the stars turned out to be a challenge, however. But, as I have said before, one of the benefits of a digital camera is that you can take lots of shots to get a usable one. This is the best of about 10 shots I took.  Even with the multiple shots I still needed to edit the photo with CorrectPhoto. Here is a before and after comparison.

The Floyd Monument-The First National Historic Landmark

Sergeant Floyd was a busy guy after he died and had trouble settling into a final resting place. He actually moved four times before arriving at his final resting place, the Floyd Monument which was completed in 1901. And, in 1960 the monument was recognized by the U.S. Department of the Interior as the first National Historic Landmark. For more information on the Floyd Monument go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Floyd_Monument

Floyd Monument-Photo Edited with CorrectPhoto & Titled with ImageTitler

Take a Bunch of Shots
I like the above shot (it was cropped and Color Corrected in CorrectPhoto) but, that was just one of about ten shots I took of the Floyd Monument. Here is a sampling of a few of the other shots I took.

Floyd Monument Photos

And that’s the point of this post—take a bunch of shots and then pick the ones you really like and toss the rest.  If you only take one or two you will most likely be disappointed after you get home and start editing your photos. It is a long way back to Sioux City or wherever you were to retake the photo. With a digital camera the extra shots are free. 

Lessons for Today
First– the history lessons. We learned who Sergeant Floyd was and why there is a Floyd Monument in Sioux City, IA, and that it was the first monument to receive the National Historic Landmark designation by the US Department of Interior in 1960. The US had 15 states at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Second–the photo lesson. Take multiple shots of subjects. This is true when you are on a vacation trip, at an event or around the house.  You most likely will not get another chance to shoot the same object again. And, remember it is free with a digital camera.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

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

Photo Editing Required
Wouldn’t it be nice if my original photos were just like the ones shown above. Alas, that is not the case. My photos, as will yours, require editing. They need to be color corrected and cropped. This process can be easy or difficult depending on the photo editor you use as will the quality of the edited photo. In this post I will show you how to edit the photos using CorrectPhoto with OneClick Color. In a future post I will describe the process using Photoshop Elements for those of you who have it.

CorrectPhoto Editor
There are several reasons I use CorrectPhoto for most of my editing (I do use Elements when I have to.). The main reason is its simplicity. This is the tool bar of available editing functions.

CorrectPhoto Editor Easy Tool Bar

For editing the bird photos I used the cropping function and OneClick Color correction function. The second reason is the OneClick Color correction. And, the third reason is the AutoRez algorithm in CorrectPhoto’s cropping function which maintains the original resolution of the photo after cropping. These features combine to make it not only easy, but extremely fast to edit photos. It took less than 5 minutes to color correct, crop and save the seven photos in the composite example shown above.

OneClick Color Correction

CorrectPhoto OneClick Color Correction-Click on Gray Background for Auto Color

As I previously mentioned, I recommend using a gray background because it doesn’t detract from the object and it is the ideal background for OneClick color correction. If you have a GretagMacbeth Gray Balance Card (this is the mini version) I suggest you use it. Just place it such that it can be easily cropped out of the photo. When opening the photo in CorrectPhoto the OneClick Color is activated. Simply click on the gray card or the gray background (if it is truly gray) and the color cast will be removed and the exposure, contrast and saturation will be fixed. If you want to tweak the color a bit more use the Enhancement function to adjust the brightness and saturation as I did in this example.

Crop to Size

Crop photo to highlight the object

 The next step is to select the cropping format (i.e. variable,  3×4, etc.) and position the box over the selected area. Click Apply and you are done. Here is the Before/After view. The AutoRez feature in CorrectPhoto will automatically re-scale the photo to the original resolution to maintain quality. This really is an important feature when you are doing close cropping and subsequent re-sizing for upload to eBay and will guarantee the highest quality image.

Final Crop of Hummingbird compared with original photo

Crop Close to Show Detail
To show the quality of the item you are selling it might be helpful to show a small portion of the object. In the Stangl Bird collectors world there are a lot of bird beaks that have been repaired over the years. So, to show that my bird’s beak is a really good beak (how is that for a statement?) I did a close crop of the flower and the beak.

Crop close to show quality of the item you want to sell

Creating Better eBay Photos is a Simple Process
Creating better eBay photos is really a simple process. It starts with the right photo setup, using a neutral background, taking multiple photos of the item, and editing the photos (crop and color correction). CorrectPhoto makes it easy and fast. If you have Photoshop Elements it might take a little longer but with iCorrect OneClick Plug-in the color correction will be as easy and the OneClick in CorrectPhoto. I will go through the Elements process in another post.

Wayne  www.correctphoto.com

“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

A Little Cropping Helps
It’s also easy to give photos a bit more “punch.” The photo of the bride and groom was taken from far away (Santa didn’t bring me a zoom lens this year), so lots of unnecessary stuff got in the frame. But I quickly cropped the picture to the right dimensions – CorrectPhoto has the most-used sizes pre-programmed – which made the photo much more exciting. After that, I pumped up the color saturation and adjusted the contrast to make the colors stand out even more. It took less than three minutes to take this from a so-so shot to a dramatic, frame-worthy memory.

Crop Photo to create a great photo

I’m impressed with CorrectPhoto. For someone like me – an amateur shutterbug who wants beautiful, true-to-life snapshots – it provides the right amount of options without being confusing. Next to my camera, it’s the most useful tool in my photography kit.”

-Heather V. Apple Valley,

Heather's photo-cropped and color corrected

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