Beginners Guide to Editing - Google Picasa

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

James Neale Photography Gets Gold award in 2010

Today has been a good day for me. Not only getting through my todo list quite quickly, I was also notified that an image that I entered into a commercial photography competition back in february had been re judged. It was originally given a silver award which I was very pleased with, but now that they have re looked at this image they have changed their minds and given it the highest level a Gold!!



Also today I found out that I won a Silver award for this 2010 wedding image;



A great way to end the year, and fingers crossed I can continue the success in 2011!

Photo shoot with Norwich band 5PM, By James Neale,Photographer, Dereham, Norwich, Norfolk.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of working with local band 5PM. They are based in Norwich, Norfolk, but are looking to move to London to help promote their band. to help finance the move the guys are looking to do some modelling work whilst they are there so as well as images to use on the band website, they were also after some images to start off their own modelling porfolios.

We all met at the Forum in Norwich to talk about the kind of thing they wanted, out of the three guys only one had some modelling experience, so i was going to have to help the guys out to make sure they were comfortable in front of the camera. When we left the Forum it was obvious that we were going to be battling with the weather all day, one minute it was sunny, the next raining, and we even had snow at one point! I started off by taking the guys to a quiet location and took some group shots to get the guys more comfortable infront of the camera, the rain then started so we headed of to a multi-storey carpark. this was a really good location and also gave us shelter from the weather.

The guys seemed to be getting used to the camera so we headed of to a busier location. this is where the fun began. One of the guys Jay looked like one of the guys from JLS, when he was having his photos done, a few people started nudging each other and pointing, everyone thought that it was really him, a little gathering of girls soon started to form! it really was great fun! i certainly loved the attention, and i think secretly Jay did to!

We all had great time and got some great images for them to use. The guys are also booked in to do a studio session this week with me and i look forward to meeting them all again, and showing them final images.

If you are in a band, or looking to start building up your Portfolio, why not check out my website or call me on 07833491550