| Digital Darkroom: Removing Red-Eye, Contrast Adjustment, Cropping |
From "Digital Photography"
episode DPG-103 |
|
|
|
advertisement
|
The Digital Darkroom Taking digital pictures is just half the fun of digital photography. Taking your pictures from camera to computer opens up a whole range of capabilities that once were available only to professionals. With some basic digital tools, you'll be able to manipulate, enhance and "fine-tune" photos after they've been taken.
Using a PC, image-based software such as Adobe's Photoshop (TM), a scanner and a color printer, the photographer has a number of practical and special-effects options available that once required a full-blown darkroom with enlargers, photographic chemicals, specialized filters, etc. Now, with little more than the click of a mouse, it's possible to remove "red-eye" and other unwanted elements from a photo, adjust brightness and contrast, create photo montages and special effects, and even restore old or damaged photos. In some instances, imaging software can allow you to turn a bad photo into a good one.
Removing Red-Eye from Flash Photos
The red-eye effect is a common problem with indoor flash photography. The familiar red glow that appears in the center of a photo-subject's eye is actually caused, at the instant the flash goes off, by light reflecting off the retina at the back of the eye. Guest expert Rob Sheppard demonstrates how easy it is to remove the red-eye effect from a photo using Adobe's Photoshop Elements (TM) program. - With the picture loaded onto the computer and opened in Photoshop, the first step is to use the magnifying tool to enlarge the portion of the image with the red-eye effect.
- The program has a useful tool, designed just for this purpose, called a red-eye brush tool. Simply click on the red-eye icon (figure A) to access the tool. Next, click the icon labelled "Default Colors."
- With the picture magnified to show the red-eye in detail, simply place the tool-cursor (it appears as a cross-hair) over the red area (figure B) and click your mouse. The red-eye will begin to disappear, being replaced with black or dark pixels to match the normal black pupil of the eye.
- Repeat these steps for each red-eye problem area.
There are other methods for altering photos digitally to remove red-eye, but the fact that this program offers a specialized tool just for this purpose makes the process very fast and easy.
Salvaging a Dark Image Using Brightness/Contrast
Another common problem with snapshot photos is underexposure of the subject. This can be due to photographing in low-light situations without a flash or shooting your subject against a light background so that the subject's features appear dark and shaded.
If the problem isn't too severe, a dark photo like this can sometimes be salvaged or improved using the brightness and/or contrast adjustments in the image software. Here are the steps: - In Photoshop, open your image, then select the menu item "Enhance." Under the Enhance menu, select the "Brightness/Contrast" option (figure C).
- This will open a window with an interface that will allow you to adjust either brightness or contrast (or both) by dragging slide controls back and forth with your mouse (figure D).
- In some cases, a photo that's too dark can be fixed simply by raising the overall brightness level of the photo. If, however, there are light and dark areas, raising the overall brightness to adjust the darkened area may result in the lighter areas (such as a light-sky background) becoming too light, or "washed out." Try playing with the brightness and contrast controls to see whether you can achieve a balance that gives good detail in the subject without overbrightening the background. Your image will adjust to reflect your enhancements as you make changes. Once you strike a balance that you're happy with, simply click "OK" to save your changes and make them permanent.
- Photoshop offers a special menu-tool for this situation called "Fill Flash" (figure E). When selected, this tool will assess the overall picture and calculate changes necessary to lighten only the darker areas of the image without overadjusting or washing out the brighter background. In many cases, this tool may be the most effective means to get the best results.
- As with the "Brightness/Contrast" adjustment, the "Fill Flash" tool provides an interface (figure F) with a slider that allows you to choose the degree of brightening. It also has a "Preview" button that allows you to compare the unaltered image with your enhanced one. Once you're happy with your enhancements, simply click "OK" to save the changes.
Cropping Images
With some photos, you may want to crop out an unwanted portion of an image to feature only the main subject of the photograph. In traditional photography, this is done using an enlarger to magnify the image so that only a portion of the image will be printed on the photographic paper. With digital image-enhancement, this is even simpler. - Photoshop provides a crop tool that's designed specifically for this purpose. Simply click on the crop icon (figure G) to access the crop tool.
- Use your mouse and cursor to draw a box around the the portion of the image you want to include and highlight the key area (figure H). You can use your cursor to move the lines of the box, if you wish, to adjust the size of the highlighted area.
- Once you're happy with the area you've selected, click "OK" to crop the image. The areas outside the highlighted box will be removed, leaving only the area of the image you've specified (figure I).
- To make your changes permanent, select "Save" under the "File" menu.
RESOURCES :
Rick Sammon, professional photographer
Web site: www.ricksammon.com
Learn more about photography with Rick Sammon's new e-book on CD. More than 100 tips and photographs from Rick's travels around the world.
And check out Rick's column on Kodak's site:
Web site: www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/magazine/tips/2001_10
Rick Sammon
Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520
Email: RickSammon@aol.com
Website: www.ricksammon.com
Special Thanks for DIY's Digital Photography workshop, episodes 101-105
Adobe Photoshop
Web site: www.adobe.com
PC Photo magazine
Web site: www.pcphotomag
Kodak
Web site: www.kodak.com
Epson America, Inc.
Web site: www.epson.com
Kinkos
Web site: www.kinkos.com
Ulead Cool 360
Web site: www.ulead.com
The Digital Wallet
Web site: www.mindsatwork.net
The L.A. County Arboretum
Web site: www.arboretum.org
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Systems
Buffalo, NY 14240-1034
Website: www.adobe.com
PC Photo magazine
Website: www.pcphotomag.com
Online version of the magazine devoted to digital photography and related technologies.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Digital Photography
Model: 002864235X
Author: Steven Greenberg
Order this book from Amazon.com.
Prentice Hall
Paramus, NJ 07652
Digital Photography For Dummies
Model: 0764506463
Author: Julie Adair King
Order this book from Amazon.com.
Hungry Minds, Inc.
Complete Digital Photography
Model: 1584500077
Author: Ben Long
Order this book from Amazon.com.
Charles River Media
Website: www.charlesriver.com/
50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques
Model: 0764535781
Author: Gregory Georges, Cris Rys
To order this title from Amazon, click here.
Hungry Minds, Inc.
Rob Sheppard, photographer and photo-computing specialist
Rob Sheppard is the editor of PCPhoto and Outdoor Photographer magazines. He was a featured guest on episode 103 of DIY's Digital Photography workshop.
Check Rob's Web site at:
www.rsphotovideos.com
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
