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One problem I faced when starting out with digital photography was how to touch up my raw digital images. Perhaps an image was slightly dark, perhaps it had to be rotated or cropped. Maybe some dirty spots had to be cleaned out and erased. Digital photos usually require some form of manipulation before final output. So here\’s a short guide which I\’ve compiled to help you touch up your photos.

Step 1: Start Up Your Image Editor The first step, of course, is to fire up your favorite image editing program. For beginners, it\’s best to get a program like Ulead PhotoImpact. It\’s a great tool that allows you to achieve professional photo effects using simple, easy-to-follow steps.

Step 2: Remove Red-Eye Should you be taking photos of people, odds are that some if not many will suffer from red-eyes issues. This is easily solved with image editing software. In Ulead Photo Impact you will find an option called Remove Red Eye in the Tool Panel that will correct the red-eye problems. Paint Shop Pro also has a Red-Eye Removal tool in the menu that when chosen will do all of the work for you.

Step 3: Rotate and Crop If you have taken a photo from an uncomfortable angle, this can be fixed with the rotate tool with very little loss to picture quality. You can also opt to crop photos to remove cluttered surroundings that take attention away from the subject of the photo. A much more professional result can be achieved by cropping away empty sides of a photograph leaving only the subject in the middle.

Step 4: Play with Color Experiment with the different color tools for a different look. Through the versatility of digital editing programs you can make the sky green, the whole photo black and white, or give it an antiqued look with a sepia tone. A good photo editing program will have an automatic color balance option to adjust color flaws in your pictures.

Step 5: Blurring Effects Some pictures can be enhanced by using a blurring effect. In this case you would select unimportant areas of the photo to softly blur out to draw more focus to the subject of the photo. An example would be to blur out the background leaves of a picture of a butterfly.

Step 6: Sharpen Up Sharpening the image is the next step in the photo touch up process. You cannot sharpen an out of focus image into clarity contrary to popular belief. The best way to utilize the sharpen tool is to selectively sharpen just a portion of an image such as a person’s eyes. Leave the unimportant areas unsharpened to give the focus to your selected area.

Step 7: Resize You may need to resize your photo to suit your need. To e-mail your photo, resize to a smaller dimension. To print on a greeting card, you will want to resize your image to a 4×6 size.

Step 8: Save Your Work We’re almost finished. Now all you have to do is save your work in the suitable image format. If you want to save all of the details for future editing, save in the TIFF format. If you want to send the picture by e-mail or upload to a web site, choose the JPEG format for saving the image.

Conclusion Alrighty then! Now you know the secret to touching up and preparing your raw digital photos for output. I\’d say that not all the above steps are truly necessary in a given situation. Remember to use your discretion to see which is necessary. Don\’t be afraid to experiment and learn - practice makes perfect when it comes to touching up your photos.

Last 5 posts by David Peters

• Which Should You Choose Photoshop CS4 Or Photoshop CS64? - November 20th, 2008
• How You Can Use Photoshop to Make Your Photos Look Great - November 14th, 2008
• How to Use Photoshop to Restore Old Photos - November 7th, 2008
• Turning Your Photographs into a Work of Art - November 7th, 2008
• Share your Photos - November 6th, 2008

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