How to Touch up Digital Pictures

Digital cameras makes taking pictures a snap. Even if you aren’t talented behind the lens of a camera, you can make up for it with a photo-editing program. The industry standard in graphic software is Adobe Photoshop but many other programs will also allow you touch up your digital pictures.

Things You'll Need

• Photo-editing program
• Card reader (or connecting USB cord)
• Digital pictures

Instructions

1. Open a picture in your photo-editing program for tweaking. Even the most basic software programs allow you to make flattering adjustments and corrections in addition to adding preset borders and captions.

2. Work with exposure problems first. Before you can fine tune color or contrast, you must be able to see the photo. With the lightness/darkness feature selected, move the sliders until the image is visible. If your program offers a middle tone adjustment, use it to lighten and darken midrange shadows.

3. Remove blemishes and wrinkles from faces. In the case of portraits, the subjects usually want to look their best, even if it means correcting some minor flaws. Most programs have a clone tool. Take a sample of pixels from a nearby area and fill in the blemish. For a flattering look, set the opacity to 20 percent or less and repeat the fill until you have just the right amount.

4. Adjust the overall color of the photograph after you correct the exposure and remove artifacts. Some programs have an auto-adjustment color feature that selects a common hue and saturation level. Since it isn’t always accurate, use the manual adjustment feature if you’re not happy with the result. Remember that human skin tones often look better with a slight gold color correction.

5. Enhance outlines on a blurred picture with built-in sharpening tools. In Photoshop, you have a handful of filters that assist you in sharpening but in other editing programs, you may only have one. Strive for a happy medium between a distinct outline without adding excessive graininess. Sharpening high resolution pictures is more effective because there are more pixels to adjust.

6. Crop your photo after all the touch-up adjustments are complete. If you crop too soon, you will be working with fewer pixels and the image integrity may suffer. With each adjustment to a digital photo, it will lose some of the resolution.

7. Add a border or vignette if desired, and save your new digital image in a separate file for printing or publishing on the web.