Save Your Bad Pictures with Digital Editing

There is no one in the history of picture taking that has been satisfied with every picture they have taken. Whether it is poor composition, poor lighting, blurry subjects or that one person who always decides to make a really creepy face, there is a lot working against your picture turning out the way you want it to. Thanks to the advancement of digital photo-editing programs, you can do a lot more to save your pictures. You can even crop that creepy-faced person right out of your picture. Gone are the days of film when you could not immediately review your pictures to see if they turned out properly and once they were printed you had little ability to change their appearance.

Even if you review your pictures and retake them, there can always be something that you still don’t like about the picture. But if it is something that you really want to have a picture of, like a rare family gathering or a place you may never return to, consider some editing tricks rather than permanently deleting the picture. When dealing with family or portrait pictures, there are some simple ways that you can fix some common problems. If the picture was not taken close enough or if there is any other problem with the composition, you can easily use some of the cropping tools to make the composition better. Red-eye reduction is another common tool that can greatly improve your pictures.

Several editing programs have manual controls so that you can improve the lighting. If you have a landscape shot that was not as well lit as you hoped, you can adjust the levels to get the lighting better or enhance the contrast. A problem with a lot of group pictures is that not everyone is standing parallel with each other and the flash may make some people look like ghosts while others who were standing farther back appear to be in the shadows. You can use the same color balance and lighting controls to even out the difference between these extremes.

A lot of saving can be done with filters in PhotoshopÒ. One simple fix is a black and white filter, and this option is also available in many other programs. Pictures that have color problems can be easily fixed just by making them black and white while other pictures are simply more striking when seen in black and white. There are a number of other filters that can sharpen your pictures or provide an artistic effect. If your picture is a little blurry, you can try out different filters until one looks right. This can hide flaws and also create a new picture. Filters can also be used to soften a picture, which can give the right picture a better feeling.

Color samples can also be used in a number of different ways to get the right look. Fix the effects of fluorescent lights or other situations where the color is just strange. With a little practice you can crop certain items out of the picture and make it look as if nothing was taken out.

Creating New World on Your Computer

It is always fun to pretend, for a little while at least, to be someone else. And for this reason, I want to talk to you all about a small secret I have. I am…a Sims fanatic. I love it. I love the world I create, I love my characters, I love the expansion packs, I love playing it, for hours at a time, and I love being in control of all of them. Being a self proclaimed Sims fanatic comes with certain stigmas, one all of us fanatics have to live with. We are seen as people who sit in the dark, drooling, eating and drinking over our computers with crumbs beneath our chair. Thank you very much, but I have a cup holder and dust buster to cure those problems…plus we all know that sitting in the dark and looking at the computer is bad for eyes, so I don’t do that either. I come home from work and relax a little by opening up my Sims. These reality based games that let you, the player be in complete control are becoming more and more popular as the technology improves.

(Read about what John W Scherer has to say about digital photography.)

So, if you don’t know what I am talking about, let me inform you on the world upon which you are missing out.

So, the Sims was first released on February 4, 2000 and is one of the best selling PC games in history, having sold over 70 million units as of January 2007. Designed by Will Wright and published by Maxis, the Sims is a life-simulation computer game that simulates daily activities of a “Sim,” a human-like character who has its own language. You control their daily activities, their careers, their home life, you build their homes, and try to keep them happy and prosperous. But, as with life, there are some sticky situations these Sims get themselves in and you must keep order. Will Wright has been quoted as calling it a “digital dollhouse.”

Will Wright is also known for having created such games as SimTower, SimCity and SimAnt. All of these are awesome.

So, back to my Sims. If you are interested, they are all doing quite well, and are in general, quite happy. I recently purchased a new expansion pack and they are all going on vacation, to the islands. My Sim recently made a lot of money at work and we are celebrating. Bon Voyage!