Buy good photo software and learn how to use it.

T e c h n o f i l e
Photo tip: How to turn a dud into a diamond with good software

April 17, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Good photographs never take themselves.
   You get that one-in-a-million picture because you stood in one spot for a half hour waiting for the right moment, maybe. Or because you got down on the floor and took pictures of the kids from their point of view, not yours.
   But what if you just missed that prized picture because something -- or someone -- got into the frame? Before digital photography came along, casual picture takers weren't able to fix their photos when that sort of thing happened. But you can do it now. All you need is a digital image and software designed for photo editing.
   Photo-editing programs are sometimes included as part of the purchase price of a digital camera, but I don't recommend such freebies. As the saying goes, they're worth only what you paid for them. Instead, buy good photo software and learn how to use it.
   At the top of my list of good photo software for home photographers is Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, which comes in versions for both Windows and Apple Macintosh OS X computers. Photoshop Elements 3.0 costs from $70 to $90, depending on discounts.
   Although I'm not a casual photographer and use Adobe's professional software, Photoshop, at the newspaper, I don't use the pro software at home. It has more functions than I need. But Photoshop Elements 3.0 seems ideal for what I need to do with my own pictures -- cropping, adjusting color balance, removing noise and fixing minor flaws.
   It's also well suited for turning a near miss into a hit. In the first photo example here, you can quickly see the problem with a photo I took of an Easter parade in my church's fellowship hall. A fellow photographer, just as eager as I was, appears behind the parading children. At the right, parents stand and talk.
   


Photos Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt. All rights reserved.
   
   As you'd probably agree, that changes the scene from a picture of kids on parade to a shot of a photographer taking a picture of kids on parade. There's nothing wrong with the picture as-is, but it's not the picture I thought I was taking.
   Making the situation worse was the fact that I was panning the camera to follow the movement of the children, helping keep them sharp in the frame. But that made the adult in the picture blurry.
   


   So he had to go. Using Photoshop Elements 3.0, I picked up sections of the background using one of the software tools and superimposed them on top of the image that showed the other photographer. I then cropped the picture so tightly that much of the right side, some of the bottom and all the top disappeared, leaving just the kids. (I even cropped out the post on the right, which I thought got in the way of a clean view.)
   Finally, I used the automatic enhancement function in Photoshop Elements 3.0 to remove the green color cast caused by the room's fluorescent lights.
   The result? A nice photo. I couldn't have done it without help. That's what good software is all about.