correctmyphotos

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

Merry Christmas Greeting

Earlier this week we woke up to 7 inches of new snow in Burnsville, MN. This was our first real snow this winter and while it created a miserable commute for many it certainly help put us in the holiday mood. And, of course, I couldn’t resist taking a few photos of our house which I recently decorated for the season and creating a greeting card. I wrote about creating greeting cards a couple of weeks ago so I won’t go into detail in this post. Of course I used CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler to quickly edit the photo and add the text. Here is another card using a different shot of the house.

Christmas card greeting created with CorrectPhoto and ImageTitler

 As I have said many times, virtually all digital photos need to be cropped, color corrected and this is particularly true of photos you might want to use for a greeting card.  The above greeting card examples are no exception.  Both need to be cropped and color corrected and here is the before and after of the above house photo. Note how dull and lifeless the original photo is. I took the photos on a cloudy morning and the color is typical of snow photos taken under those conditions. But, as you can see, they can be easily turned into a good looking photo with a photo editor like CorrectPhoto or Photoshop Elements.

House photo was cropped and color corrected with CorrectPhoto

The greeting text was added with ImageTitler.

Add greeting text to photo with ImageTitler

 Why not use one of your photos to create a unique greeting card to send to your friends this holiday season. It is easy and fun to do and anyone can do it.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

Resize your images before uploading to eBay

These past few days I have been learning how to sell on eBay. I finally decided to sell my Stangl Bird collection and to try eBay as the sales outlet.  If you have been following my blog you know I have written several posts on how to take photos for eBay and editing them for the best presentation using CorrectPhoto Editor.  The next step was to find the best way to present the photos of the item for sale.  I wasn’t impressed with eBay’s standard photo presentation and Craig told me about Auctiva. Auctiva is an eBay listing service that simplifies the process of eBay listings with a great photo storage and presentation feature. It also provides templates that make professional listings easy. Here is an example of one of my Stangl Bird listings. I chose a “neutral” (remember in photography neutral is black, white, or gray, not beige) background without a lot of clutter so the background doesn’t distract from the item photos.  On the eBay listing page the viewer can click on the smaller image and a full size (1024×768) image pops up.

Auctiva Listing Service Makes eBay Listing and Photo Uploading Easy

Since the maximum image size (1024×768) is generally smaller than the original or edited digital camera file you have two choices: upload the large file and let the photo service resize the image or resize the image before you upload the file. My recommendation is to resize the image before you upload the file. If you have Photoshop or Elements you can resize the photos by selecting Image/Resize/Image Size form the menu bar and entering the number of pixels (i.e 1024) for the width or the height and save the new size.

Using Photoshop Elements to Resize Images Before Uploading

I use CorrectPhoto to resize my photos because it is much easier and faster and, more importantly; the resize algorithm is very good. And, I usually do one click on the Sharpening icon to make the resized photo a little crisper. (continue reading…)

Close Up photography can be tricky.
Close up photography of flowers can be a bit tricky if you don’t have a camera with the right macro lens.  However, you can get great results with almost any digital camera and the right photo editing software. But, before I get into “close up cropping” let me tell you about Grandpa Wesler’s Heirloom Cannas.

Heirloom Canna Flower-Edited with CorrectPhoto-Titled with ImageTitler

The Heirloom Canna Flower
 Cannas grow from bulbs (rhizomes) that have to be dug up every fall, wintered, and re-planted in the spring except in zones 8 to 10 which is pretty far south. We live in Minnesota on the edge of Zones 4 and 5.  The bulbs we use in our garden (and in many of our friend’s gardens) date back over 75 years. My wife’s grandfather who lived in Collinsville, IL was the original gardener of these particular cannas and when he passed on many years ago at the age of 92 my father-in-law, Les, became the “keeper” of the family heirloom cannas. Les, now 92, lives in St. Louis and when he and my mother-in-law moved from their house to a retirement facility I became the keeper of the cannas. You can image the responsibility that rests upon my broad shoulders to keep these heirloom Cannas propagating from year to year.  This is no small task in Minnesota and involves digging up the bulbs after a freeze has taken care of the stalks but before the ground freezes to kill the bulbs. Then they must be stored in a cool dry place until spring when they are planted in pots to get them started so they will bloom before the snow flies in the fall.  Since I assumed the responsibility for the cannas three years ago with about a dozen bulbs they have multiplied to almost 60 plants this spring. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous and a real attraction to people passing our house. If you are interested in learning more about history and care of Heirloom Cannas go to http://www.oldhousegardens.com/CannaHistoryAndCare.asp.

Cropping Photos for Close Ups
The other day a neighbor stop by to take a picture of the Canna flowers in our garden with a point-and-shoot film camera (can you believe that?). She was trying to get a close up shot of the flower and while I haven’t seen the photo my guess is that it wasn’t a close up as she had hoped.  Most often it is difficult getting a good close up shot with a point and shoot camera. That is true for digital as well as film. Looking through the view finder or at the digital screen you think you are closer that you really are. With a film camera there isn’t a lot you can do about it after the shot. With a digital camera it is highly likely that you can achieve the close up you wanted with by cropping the photo. Here is an example of what I mean.

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Do you enjoy taking pictures with your digital camera but are disappointed that they don’t look as good as you thought they would?  There are, of course, many reasons for this. 

One is that we are not as careful “framing” a shot with our digital camera as we were when we were shooting film. Remember when you looked through a view finder to frame the shot? And, since the roll of film only had 24 or 36 exposures AND you had to pay for developing the film AND pay for prints you took your time to make sure the shot was a good one. (I use to drive my family nuts with the time I took to take a picture.) Now, we look at that little screen on the back of the camera while holding the camera a foot in front of our face and expect to get a great picture. Good Luck!

Then there are the issues of color, red eye, and exposure that are more prevalent in digital photography than when we shot with film. I won’t go into the reasons in this article, but most digital photos suffer from one or more of these issues.

You can make your digital photos look more professional with a photo editor.

Tiger Woods on the First Tee-Cropped and Color Corrected with CorrectPhoto

The good news is that with digital photos you have a chance to make photos look better. Or, putting it another way, we have a chance to fix our framing mistakes and the camera’s color and exposure problems.  All you need is a photo editor and a computer.  And, you really don’t have to do a lot of editing. All most photos need to make them look more professional is a little cropping and color correction and maybe a bit of sharpening.  In the photo above of Tiger Woods on the first tee at Hazeltine Golf Club in Minnesota a few years I cropped the golfers standing on the tee. Then I color corrected to get rid of the dull morning haze. Because of the tight crop I also sharpened the cropped photo.

Better Vacation Photos

You don’t get many “do overs” when you are on vacation. Normally, you don’t look closely at the photos until you get home and load them on your computer or have prints made. So, you can’t go back and take the photo again. But, in the digital world all is not lost. In the following example I cropped out the food partial food vendor from the photo of the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, MO, framed by the famous Arch-the Gateway to the Midwest.

St. Louis, MO Arch and Old Court House Cropped and Color Corrected

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