Intro to Digital Photo Editing

In the film days our shots were optimized by the lab when being printed. And that is why we are sometimes disappointed with what we see at first with our digital shots. Digital images can record a very wide range of brightness and because of that the colors don't always "pop" or look as bright and good as they should. So some optimization is sometimes (often) required.

Though the cameras are getting "smarter" all the time. And if you shoot JPG's it will process them to a degree at the time of capture. 

If you shoot RAW images, the editing is all up to you. RAW images give you the most power in editing.

Some adjustments can be made in almost any software that will open the file; See below for some current choices.

Printing - Backing Up - Organization

Print

Getting really good prints yourself is tricky. It is a can of worms! There could be a whole class on this and there are classes and books on advanced printing techiques.

You need a photo printer and photo paper and lots of ink. It can be very time consuming and frustrating.

You need a quality printer, quality paper, quality archival inks, monitor and printer calibration, lots of time and patience for anything that rivals a 19¢ print from Walgreens.

For really nice prints use one of the online services or local photo printers.

For fine art quality prints you should get an account with a printer that does that: BayPhoto, WHCC, PhotoCraft are 3 examples. 

Organization

Use the computer system's folders to organize for yourself first. Having a working folder and archive folders is important. Keep the originals save for later optimization. Look at this page from my Photoshop Elements class. It has one well thought out example of a good organization.

Good software tools for organization:

On Mac: Photos (does not allow the user to do the initial organization of files with tweaking the preferences!), Picasa, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop and Bridge, Photoshop Lightroom, (does not allow the user to do the initial organization of files with tweaking the preferences!)

On Windows: Windows Photo Gallery, Picasa, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop and Bridge, Photoshop Lightroom

There are others as well; PhotoMechanic, ACDSee, Microsoft Expression Media Studio (used to be iView Media)

3 IMPORTANT THOUGHTS on ORGANIZING YOUR IMAGES

• You may want a scheme for naming your images!

• You need a scheme for organizing your image folders!

• You should consider the power of keywording (tagging) your images! After considering it you should start doing it right away.

• Digital Albums or Collections are also great organizational tools.
  
  

Back Up

Having really great photos is one thing, keeping them forever is another.

Do you know where your backups are? If you seriously want to keep your images forever you must have a scheme for basic back-up! All computer drives will fail at some point. 

A good workflow...

• Transfer images from memory card to computer

• Copy images to external backup disk.

• Upload to a cloud account.

• Make sure one backup is off-site. (see the cloud idea above)

• Re-format memory card for re-use only after the sequence above.

The 321 strategy from the DAM book says: 3 copies of the data on 2 different media devices and at a remote location.

Main Types of Editing:

Filters: Phone apps all have these --- Try Prisma, it is fun!

or

Real Editing has these main/basic processes:

Crop and Size

You want to control the crops for lots of reasons dealing with the composition but also on prints! If you let the printing company choose your crop you will be sorry. Your camera shoots at a certain aspect ratio, probably 3:2 or 4:3 but common print ratios are very different. Sizing is important for sharing too.