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MAKE GREAT PICTURES EVEN BETTERTaking steady, well-framed pictures is important, but it’s not everything. You don’t have to be a computer expert to learn to adjust the levels, clean up background noise or re-crop your images to create a more pleasing composition. Every photo-editing program is a little different, but there are certain tricks and fixes that work well across the board. Windows 7 Tip: Windows Photo Gallery preserves the original "digital negative," so even after you edit the picture and save it, you can return it to its original form.
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 | | Adjust Brightness or Contrast
Lighten underexposed images by raising the brightness setting (generally a slider). If an image appears too dark, try adjusting the contrast to make dark areas lighter. In some programs, you can select a portion of the image and adjust the brightness/contrast of that portion independently (good if you had one area in a shadow, for instance).
Click Tip: Don’t over edit. A little bit goes a long way.
Adjust Saturation, Temperature or Tint
Boosting the saturation of an image can perk up dull colours. Go slowly — with saturation, a little bit goes a long way. Playing with other colour elements, such as temperature and tint can improve the tonal range and make a picture “pop.”
Click Tip: Slow going? Editing photos uses lots of memory. If your system is creeping along, quit other programs. If it’s still slow, consider adding more memory.
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| | Bye-Bye, Red-Eyes
Many cameras have a red-eye reduction, but it’s not always enough if your subject is looking at the camera and/or you’ve used a flash. Eliminating red eyes with the red-eye tool normally requires placing your cursor on the red eye and clicking.
Windows 7 Tip: With Windows Photo Gallery, you don't need to use a separate photo editing program. You can easily make basic corrections such as removing red eye, cropping and adjusting colour and exposure.
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| | Sharpening
The sharpening tool is frequently the beginners’ favourite. It makes images appear sharper by increasing the contrast on the borders between light and dark areas of the image.
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Click Tip: By blurring the background, you can highlight your subject and make it pop.
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Advanced Editing Tools
Once you’re comfortable, try using the selection tools (to highlight certain areas of the image for editing), airbrushing out blemishes, adding text and removing scratches from scanned photographs. When you get really good, you can add filters and treatments such as black and white, sepia, paint filter effect (mosaic), soft blur effect, star effect (light flare) or different edges.
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Windows 7 Tip: Windows Photo Gallery preserves the original "digital negative," so even after you edit the picture and save it, you can return it to its original form.
Click Tip: Don’t over edit. A little bit goes a long way.
