Digital photo editing beginners often misunderstand what the Sharpening tool can do for a photo.
The first thing to remember about Sharpening is this.
It doesn’t matter how good your photo editing program is, you cannot fix what wasn’t already there.
No amount of sharpening is going to fix a bad, fuzzy picture.
If you [...]
Megabyte A megabyte is generally about a million bytes, or a thousand kilobytes.
Technically, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes.
Megapixel A megapixel is one million pixels, or dots.
Megapixels are the de facto standard for measuring the power of a digital camera.
Generally speaking, a four megapixel image can be printed at [...]
Are there any cheaper alternatives to Adobe Photoshop CS2’s steep price?There are a handful of products in the under-$100 price range, with products available from Adobe, Corel, and even Microsoft.
But, there are also a variety of programs available in an even lower price range–free! Freeware programs (where the owner has released the [...]
In the past, photo editing was time consuming and tedious.
Anything beyond simply lightening or darkening a picture meant hours of painstaking work.
Something as simple as painting away a feature involved creating an entirely new picture, with the object being replaced by tiny bits cut out of other parts of the picture.
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One of the first really powerful photo editing programs was Deluxe Paint, designed by Dan Silva and Electronic Arts for the Commodore Amiga computer.
With a wide variety of features and an eye-catching, high quality image of King Tut’s mask on the cover, Deluxe Paint was the leader in graphics programs for years.
Originally designed [...]
If you’re serious about photography, and if you’re looking for the best and most powerful photo editing program around, the de facto standard and market leader is Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Unfortunately, with it’s steep learning curve and equally steep price tag, Photoshop is overkill for the people who just want to play with their pictures.
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“I’ve heard a lot of confusing stuff about JPGs.
Some people tell me they’re perfect for online photography, and other people warn me that when I convert my pictures to JPG, I’m going to throw away most of the quality of my picture! I don’t want to ruin my pictures, so should I be [...]
Image Resolution The Resolution is the number of pixels, or dots, in a picture.
Inkjet Printer An Inkjet printer sprays tiny jets of ink onto paper.
ISO The sensitivity of film is measured by ISO, and the larger the number, the more senstive the film.
ISO 100 needs a lot of light, like outdoors [...]
Dodging Dodging is making a section of a photo lighter.
When this is done in the darkroom, it’s usually by blocking some of the light from reaching that part of the picture.
In a photo editing program, it’s a paintbrush like tool that lightens instead of painting.
Download Downloading is the opposite of [...]
Yes, the name is backwards.
The “Unsharp Mask” tool in Adobe Photoshop and other programs does exactly the opposite of what the name implies–it sharpens pictures.
But, it does it by emulating an old photography sharpening trick.
It also happens to be one of the best tools in the photo editor’s drawer.
Darkroom [...]
