This months blog post is all about basic editing.
Now I realise not everyone has access to Photoshop so I thought I would do a little review on Google's free editing software Picasa. Picasa is a totally free piece of software that you can download to your computer. Its has all the basic editing features you need to enhance your photos.
The first thing we are going to talk about is the crop tool.
We have all taken a picture and afterwards wish we had composed it differently. With the crop tool we can crop out unwanted parts of the image.
Take this shot below, it was taken in a zoo and the composition is pretty poor. We have the zebra in the middle of the frame and you can see the fence in the background.
By selecting the crop tool we can start to re compose the image and remove unwanted items.
Once we have clicked on the Crop tool all we need to do is click on the image and draw a rectangle over the area that we want to keep. Once we have the area selected we just hit the Apply button to save the settings.
We can also do minor colour adjustments to the picture, changing the brightness, highlights, shadows and also correct any colour issues we may have due to white balance errors.
We can also apply various preset colour schemes.
Add colour effects to the image at a click of a button, such as sepia, holga, vintage and many others.
Other filters are also available such as sharpening, graduated or soft focus.
You could even turn the image black and white, or make it look like a pencil drawing.
One of the great features that Picasa offers is the 'Retouch' tool. This is great for removing spots and blemishes from your pictures. All you do is hover the brush over the blemish, click the mouse, and move the circle over a clear patch of skin. Below you can see a before and after picture
Before
After
Download your copy here
www.jamesnealephotography.com
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