How I edit my photos

I am the worst photographer. It's true. But I think most of the pictures I post here look pretty good. But it doesn't happen during the picture taking process. LOL!

Two things I learned from a professional photographer.

1. You don't need an expensive camera or expensive software to take good pictures.
2. A point and shoot will give you a better unedited picture than a digital SLR. The reason for that is that real photographers prefer "raw" type images that they can manipulate. Point and shoots do things to the picture to make them more vibrant and colorful during the actual photographing. I learned that from a big shot in New York. LOL!

This entry may be a bit longer than I usually post but you can stop after the pictures if you aren't interested in the photo editing tutorial.


Here is a card I just made today. I used my new Janome sew mini sewing machine. I am truly in love with this thing.

You don't have to know anything about sewing to make it work. All I did was thread it right out of the box and this is the stitch I got.


I colored this little cutie with Copic Markers from Box C and I used a blender pen to create the shading.

I learned a little bit more about better shading from my daughter Alicia. As you can see, it has made a difference. (She also taught me how to turn my logo into HTML code. LOL! Hey, kids are expensive, you gotta' get your money's worth, KWIM?)

This next shot is a close up picture so you can see more of the shading and stitching. When I take my photos, if there is something interesting that is better viewed up close, I try to take a close up picture. (Well, I don't actually take the picture up close, I zoom in and crop it. I will show that to you too.)



I didn't write down the Copic colors that I used for this card but I will post it in our forum on Splitcoaststampers and when I do, I will add the color numbers.

I love that light turquoise that goes around the giraffe! I've seen so many other bloggers do that too and I really think it makes the image pop.

Card details:

Stamps- Gina K. Designs, Just so Hippy by Melanie Muenchinger and Rectangle Greetings.

Ink- Brilliance Graphite- heat set

Paper- Patterned paper by Daisy D's, Solid paper- Bazzil

Brads- Queen & Company

Extras-
Extra Jumbo scalloped rectangle punch by Marvy
Stampin Up Markers in Rust and Not Quite Navy for the Rectangle
Copic Markers
Janome Sew Mini Sewing machine,
Navy Thread.


Photo editing tutorial to below

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Let me show you what the orginal card looked like for this blog entry. *Embarrassing*



As you can see it's too far away, a bit blurry and not very colorful. The software I use is called Microsoft Photodraw. Here is a place to get it for about $30.00 and it's downloadable so you can have it right away.



To get it to look like this, I cropped the photo. You can crop it with your own photo software. If you are using Microsoft Photodraw software, go to "Crop Size", "Crop By Shape" and then use your mouse to drag a box around the area that you want to keep and "click finish."

Next, I brightened the photo by adjusting the brightness and contrast. I used the auto button so I didn't have to figure it out myself. In photodraw, Go to "touchup", "brightness and contrast" and then click on the automatic button.



See how much different the color looks?

Then, I sharpen it so it's not blurry. Use your sharpen photo feature on your software. If you are using Photodraw, go to "touchup", "blur or sharpen" and then move the number up to no more than 10. I used 7 for this photo below on the right. On the left is the before shot:



This is the way the close up photo started.




I rotated the picture first before I cropped it to give it some interest. Here is how it looks in the program.



Then I cut it out into a rectangle like this. You will see that the area that is highlighter will be all that is left.



Here what is left when I click on the finish button.



The last step that I do is soften the edges and add my watermark. I will do a tutorial on how to add a watermark with this program. It is soooo easy, it's unbelievable. I'll do that soon, I promise!

So that's what I do to edit my photos. It really only takes me about a minute a photo and it's so worth it to provide you with brighter clearer pictures.
 
If you have any questions, ask them here in the comments and I will respond to each question right under your question here in the comments so you can come back and check for an answer later.

Have a wonderful evening!

Hugs,
Gina K.
Posted by Gina K at 2/6/2008 6:12 PM
Categories: Tutorials, How to do it
 

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