The Perfect Picture: Software to help
The Perfect Picture:
Software to help when your pics aren't what you expected.
Are you having problems with some
of your photo's?
Not everyone is a great
photographer. We can't all get that perfect lighting, or that
perfect angle and in today's economy, it may not be easy to afford a
Professional Photographer for that perfect picture.
I
read a BLOG recently
asking for feedback/critique on a picture of a house.
A couple of replies had to do with the very light areas of
the photo, referred to as a "washed out" look. If you are
having trouble taking the kind of pictures you want, there is still
hope for you as there are a number of software programs that let you
work with specific parts of your picture.
The
picture on the left
(below) is the picture posted on the blog I mentioned requested
critique. Notice
the bright spots. When I was reading the blog and the
comments, I realized that I have software that can help with this.
It is Microsoft
Digital Image Suite 10.
My software is several years old, so I am sure it has been
updated several times, but with this software, I am able to take those
light areas and darken them up, or if need be, I can play with various
other elements to help improve the picture quality.
In
this particular shot,
I chose to darken up the light areas of the house (see pic on the
right), which would be the roof and the walls. There is also
a light area in the grass just in front of the house and I chose to
darken that just a bit too, helping to eliminate some of the washed out
appearance. True, this is not perfect, but realize, this is
the first time I have played with this function of this software.
With a little effort, I am sure I could make this look much
better. I wanted to post this information to let those who
read this know that you can easily edit your pictures. I
found this program to be user friendly as I was able to quickly figure
out how to accomplish this task.
The
picture below (left)
was on the website of our Active Rain blogger who was requesting
critique. I chose to darken the roof just a bit, but I also
choose to darken the lawn, bringing out the green in the grass.
While playing with the software, I learned that I could
totally remove the sidewalk and the program filled in the area with
grass perfectly. I couldn't tell the picture had been
tampered with. I didn't post that particular picture, but
just wanted to let you know that is just another of the functions you
can perform with this software.
Below...I
just added a border
to the picture of this house, trying to jazz it up a bit. The
program has many borders available and the colors can be altered as
well as the various levels of thickness. A lot can be done
with this software. I realized today I need to play with this
software a lot more, it has lots of possibilities.
While on the subject of
software...how many of you have been looking for software
that allows you to pull a person out of the picture so that you can add
that person to a different picture. If that question seems a
bit vague, just look at my picture here on Active Rain. I
pulled myself out of one picture, and placed myself into another
picture. I can easily change that background over and over
again, and I have already done so about 10 times and now have pictures
I can rotate here. I can have a different house in the
background every day if I want to.
To do this, I am using Photo
Impact Pro (Version 10). Rather than pulling
myself out of the picture, I actually remove the background, and insert
another background, or once the background has been removed, I can drag
my pic over to another picture. Perhaps you have a picture of
a house you would like to use, but don't like the surroundings of the
house and want to get rid of the background? Now you can.
You may want to leave the shrubs in the front though, or you
would have blank white spots where you removed them.
I bought both of the
above programs several years ago.
MS Digital Image Suite cost me $48.57 while Photo Impact Pro cost me
$65.07. I got both programs at Sams Club. I've seen
the Digital Image Suite at much higher costs in other stores.
I am not sure how much these programs cost today. I
assume they are still available.
As a
side note, I am sure some of you have been reading the various blogs
about copyright issues. In staying in accordance with the
rules of Active Rain and also in accordance with copyright laws,
although Mindy did request a critique of her photo, I did ask
permission to make adjustments and to post her photo in this blog.
;)
;)
I've used free programs like Adobe PhotoAlbum that came with my photo printer, and online tools such as www.picnik.com. I'd love to have a photo editing suite but I'm not there yet. Although $50-70 isn't so bad if it is a great program.