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Digital Photo Editing
Here are some tips and tricks for digital photo editing.
Software
- Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes it easy to organize your pictures. Picasa also includes basic image manipulation tools like red eye elimination, color correction, crop, and many more. One advantage of Picasa is that it never alters the actual file on disk. You can always go back to your original picture.
- GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a free program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. If you use Windows be sure to visit the GIMP for Windows page to download GIMP
- Adobe Photoshop Elements is a commercial program available for about $80 at Costco or online (MSRP about $140). A free trial is available from Adobe so you can try before you buy. Photoshop Elements is very similar to GIMP but it runs a bit faster. There is also a 'full' version of Photoshop for $700.
Links
Here are some links to tutorials and other goodies- Photoshop tutorials includes step-by-step instructions on colorizing, animation, layers, color changing, high lighting, photo restoration, and digital scrapbooking.
- Photography workshop by Mike Green has some quick tips and examples of image manipulation and photo restoration
- Photoshop tutorials: Photoshop Elements tutorials included hundreds of tutorials organized by subject.
- About.com Photoshop Elements User Resources includes categorized tips, tutorials, and free downloads.
- GIMP Tutorials from the GIMP site itself are organized by ability level (beginner, intermediate, etc.) and subject.
- Gimp-tutorials.net is an entire website dedicated to tutorials, brushes, downloads, and a forum to ask questions and discuss options.
- Google Videos has links to a number of GIMP video tutorials.
What can you do?
Using Picasa you can easily do basic image enhancements like crop, color correction, sepia, soft focus, fill flash, etc.
For more advanced photo editing, you can use GIMP (free download) or Photoshop Elements (about $80). These tools allow you to mark regions of the photo and make more detailed corrections and enhancements. Use these tools to do photo restoration and other advanced functions.