Enhancing Your Photos

Alison says:

• Bring your photo into Photoshop Elements.
• Click on the “quick fix” tab above the photo.
• If your photo has red eye, click on the red eye tool on the left, then click on each eye to correct it. For a fast way, ctrl.+ R to fix it all automatically.
• For a dingy, faded photo, try using the “smart fix” button under “general fixes” on the right. If you don’t like it, choose reset and manually change the lighting and coloring by using the tools to the right.
• To just lighten your photos, it’s good to use ctrl + L and use the slider to get the correct lighting.
• You can lighten just part of a photo by using the lasso tool and selecting only the part you want to lighten.

If your photos have specks on them, try using the filter “noise>dust and scratches” to eliminate them.

Ann says:  Almost every photo needs a little something.  After putting photos on your computer, locate them in Picasa, double click on the first one, and fix whatever it needs, then go to the next and do the same until you have checked each photo.  If there are really bad ones and subject is covered in another picture, delete it.
     Check out the pictures below.  The first one was taken with a video camera and doesn't really look too bad if you don't compare it to the second one.  Alison wanted to give each of the boys a copy, so she just did a few things:  (1) cloned out the pink balloon on the right (2) brightened the exposure (3) added some warmth (4) cropped it to emphasize the boys and (5) added some rounded corners.  She did this in Lightroom, a photo editing program for professionals, but all of this could be done in Photoshop Elements, and most of it in Picasa.

Young Men in the Chico 2nd Ward