Photo Editing Basics: Knowledge

One of the problems that most of us (me, this is my problem) have with photo editing is that we don't really know how to take or develop good photos in the first place. There was a whole culture of photographers with a specialized language (contrast, white balance, composition, etc.) that existed before computers and digital cameras came along. Then photo editing software was written by and for photographers and graphic designers so it's very much like learning a new language. When I first sat down with Photoshop I had no earthly idea what most of the things meant. I still don't know what "Gaussian Blur" means, but I know what it does (in general, don't ask me though). Now there are things like a histogram that I can see on my digital camera if I want, but to me it's all just bumpy lines. For people who know about the science-art of photography it means something.

Getting just a bit of knowledge can make a huge difference in your ability to edit photos well. Take a class at the local community college (and it's a great way to meet people in your neighborhood), read a book or go to a photography exhibit. There are some websites that will help you to understand the fundamentals of photography like "Basic Principles of Photography" and "Principles of Photography."

Composition refers to the elements in a picture and where they are in the shot. The rule of thirds is a compositional help for photographers and photo editors.

Contrast is the difference between light and dark, white and black. Higher contrast will generate a starker image, but may remove some of the subtle details. Brightness is the amount of light from zero (black) to 100 percent (white). Brighter pictures may be easier to see, but the colors get washed out if it's too bright.

Practice taking good photos so you can learn what you want to achieve when you edit photos. Remember, it's all digital, so you can't mess it up. Just keep taking pictures and see what happens. The only way to get better with photos is to get some experience. And that experience will come more easily if you take the time to learn the language.

What photography principles do you find the most helpful? What did I get wrong in this post?

Photo Editing - March

During the month of March we're going to look at photo editing. Editing pictures is a huge category that could take far more than a month to cover given the short, blog format. In order to be effective at using visuals as you communicate, you don't need to be an expert at editing images, but you do need to know some basics.

I'm thinking of a weekly category something like:
Week 1 - Basic retouching (crop, brightness and contrast)
Wee 2 - Basic editing (cut and paste, lighting effects, text effects)
Week 3 - Advanced editing (merging pictures, full transformation stuff)
Week 4 - Special tools (photo mosaic, panoramas, etc.)

To help me get my bearings and provide the best content this month, I'd love to know what questions you have about editing photos.

Photo Resources part 2

Finding the perfect photo just doesn't seem to happen with tools like Flickr or Stock Exchange. There are great photos there, but it's tough to find them. The search tools and tagging system on most photos sites just don't provide a robust experience. Google is great at searching and Google Images is great for searching for images. The problem is that many of the image results that will come up from Google will be either copyrighted or too small or both.

If I'm looking for images for a specific thought or point I'll use Google Images to find the photos that are close to what I want then move on to the higher quality resources to put in my presentations. Google Images allows you to search by keyword, file type (photographs, line drawings, and faces), color, and size.

How do you search for the perfect image?

Photo Gathering and Editing #3

Taking Good Photos

Taking good pictures is a difficult job. There's a reason that we pay professionals to take pictures for us - they have the time and training to think about lighting, framing, composition, f-stop, mega-pixels, and all the other photo-type-stuff involved in snapping great images.

But there are a few things you can do to snap some great shots of your own.

1. Lighting - there are a couple issues involved in lighting a picture well. First, think about the source of the light - is it behind your subject or in front of your subject? Usually it's a good idea to take a picture where your light is in front of your subject. Also think about the amount of light - a dark scene can be hard to see, but a flash might wash out the details. Some cameras have an intelligent mode that will detect a scene with difficult lighting and take two pictures, one with and one without the flash.

2. Composition - how is your picture framed in the shot? A well composed picture tends to rely on the rule of thirds. So a landscape will usually have the horizon in the bottom third or the top third. A portrait will have the subject in the left third, the middle third, or the right third. You might notice that good images aren't dead-center and balanced. They employ some imbalance for nice artistic effect.

In the picture of the mountain I framed the horizon of the sky in the top third and the edge of the meadow in the bottom third and the peak of the mountain in the right third. I think in turned out nicely.

3. Cropping - one of the best things about digital photography is that you can take a bunch of shots and not have to worry about wasting film and then when you get home you can fix any mistakes you made. Learning how to crop well can cover a multitude of photographic sins. You can fix your composition with a good crop or change a picture from a nice shot to a great shot.

One thing to consider when taking pictures that you might use in your presentations is that you want a descent amount of "white space" which just means empty space not filled up with something. In the pictures below you can see two crops - one emphasizes the flower, the other leave a lot of empty space. The second crop is a lot better for PowerPoint because it leaves you a lot more room to work with if you want to insert text.