Photography Tip—How To Use Digital Editing Software to Fix Common Mistakes, Part 2

photoshop2 image Part 1of this PhotographyTalk.com article presented the first tips you can use to correct many of your digital photos that you might otherwise discard or never view again. Part 2 adds some additional tips to help rescue bad photos or adjust them, so they become family and personal pictures to treasure.

Color Your World

There may be any number of reasons to change the color of a subject’s clothing, the background or other elements of a photo. Maybe, you shot a family portrait and only after you viewed the image did you realize that the color of someone’s shirt clashes with the color of the walls in the room. You could also use photo-editing software to change the wall color of rooms in your house to help you decide what new colors to paint those rooms. Many interior designers use software for this reason because it saves time and money.

To make color changes, try these steps in Photoshop:
Choose select > color range.
Select a color range from the pull-down menu or use the "eye dropper" to click on a color.
Move the fuzziness arrow until the new color covers the selected area.
Choose image > adjustments > hue/saturation to finalize your color change.
You may have to use the magnetic lasso tool if you’re unable to select the walls, surfaces or objects with the color-range technique.

Block the Blemishes

It’s rare for anyone to have perfect skin. That’s why there are so few super-models. You should expect your family members and friends to have blemishes and other facial or skin imperfections that they would rather not see in family photo albums, especially those close-ups. In Photoshop, the healing brush will make almost anyone’s skin look flawless.
Choose the healing brush tool.
Select a brush size that is similar in size to the blemish you want to eliminate.
As you hold the Alt or Command key, click on a skin section with no imperfections near the spot you want to correct.
Click on the blemish once or twice and it will disappear.
The clone stamp tool can also be used to create a similar effect.

Single Again

You can also fix all those photos that include your X with many of the Photoshop steps in this article. For example, you and your former boyfriend (girlfriend) are standing in front of the background of trees.
Use the selection tool to choose a portion of the trees.
Copy and paste the trees over your X.
Clean the image with the erase tool.
Apply the close stamp tool and healing brush as needed to make fine adjustments, so the photo now looks like a portrait of just you.

Red-Eye Be Gone!

Red-eye is an effect that causes people’s pupils to reflect red; in pets, it’s known as green-eye. To learn why this occurs and how you can eliminate it when shooting digital photos, read the PhotographyTalk.com article, Digital Photography—Simple Tips to Control the Red-Eye Effect. Once the effect is registered on an image, however, you’ll need photo-editing software to fix it.

Red-eye is one of the mistakes that are quite easy to fix in the software bundled with your camera or simple editing software; however, it’s a bit more involved with Photoshop.
Use the magic wand to select most of the red portion of your subject's eye.
Select image > adjust > brightness/contrast to darken the subject’s pupils.
If you still notice some red, define the area around it with the magnetic lasso tool.
Then, completely eliminate any red with image > adjust > de-saturate.
If you want to change the color of the subject’s eyes (green looks sexier than gray), then try the options in the image > adjust > variations menu.

By learning how to use photo-editing software, you’ll have many more tools at your disposal to improve your pictures and understand how to correct your mistakes in the camera.

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