Forums · Cleaning Up Images
Ok I took some shots with the flash and without just to see if there would be a difference.. and just wondering if anyone knew of some free/cheap programs I could use to clean up the dark ones. I do have some photo editors but they really mess up the pic.
I'm guessing you want to lighten up your dark images. Not sure what operating system you run but you can do simple tasks like lighten/contrast/resize/crop using windows pic manager. That is how I do mine it's quick and easy and you don't want to make too many adjustments as it can alter an image. If you want a free program to use, check out gimp, it's a program that is like a basic version of photoshop, you can do more than pic mgr but less than many pic programs that cost a good buck.(www.gimp.org) They have a document section (list of items on left side), click on that and read all the things you will be able to do with the gimp so you can decide if it's what you want before downloading. Lots of folks use it and like it, it's free and enables you to do more than just brighten/contrast your pics. It will take some time to read everything and learn how to use, as it has all kinds of features. You can do some layering, masking, special effects even.
Now if you just want to lighten your pics to see them for now, it's real easy to do with pic manager.
Here's what you need to do to lighten up your pics (I run XP so if your using something else some things may look a bit different but I'm sure it should be fairly close).
Open your pic file in pic manager. Now before you do anything to your photo make sure you save it as a new file (re-name it to something different than the original file name or it will re-write your changes over the original image). It's important to always have an original unedited copy of your pictures, that way you can go back and make different adjustments by saving it as a new file whenever you like. Plus if you happen to capture something you believe is pn you will often be asked to provide the original unedited photo in addition to the version you are sharing. Not to mention if you make a mistake and clicked save changes you still have the original to save a new file and start again. I sometimes have 4 or 5 copies of the same photo, the original and several others each with a little more adjustments done, or some are crops etc.
Once you have your picture open click on File > "Save As" (not save), a window will pop up where you can enter a new file name (for example current image is DSC100000.jpg, you can now change it to say backyard, usually the cursor is already highlighting the current file name so just type in what you want to call it. Before you hit save look at the top and see where you are saving it to, if you want to save it to desktop (for example) instead of my pictures or where it's currently saving then change the location. Now your ready to click on save. The original pic will still be up close it and go to the one you saved and your ready to start making adjustment.
Open your new re-named saved image. Click on edit pictures, a list of options will come up on the right. Click on brighten/contrast and you can then slide the brighten, contrast or midtone bars to slowly brighten your picture. You can also go to resize or crop, color etc and adjust as you need to. Just play with it trying different things, you can always slide the bars back to zero, or close the image click no when it asks if you want to save changes, re-open and start again. Or click on edit at the top tool bar and click undo until your back to where you want to be. OR if you don't want to play you can always click on auto correct (there is an auto adjust in color, contrast etc) and your puter will automaticaly make adjustments to the pic, if you don't like click edit and undo. Keep in mind it's best to do as little adjusting as possible so not to alter the image to much. You can always open and save as again, and do another one with even more adjustments.
I often find if a pic is really huge it becomes pixelated and if you make changes it makes things worse. So I resixe the photo down which reduces the pixelation some. Then I make a bit of adjustments. I find web small or email large are often good sizes if I want to post the image in the thread (sometimes have to use the % option and decrease them a wee bit after making it web small), if sharing by url link I will use a bigger size like web large or doc small. All depends on how the original file was saved (size) and how pixelated or not a pic is. If you are going to post your pics here, be sure to use an url link for the original (if it's larger) as only smaller images can be posted inside the threads. Browse the pic forum and you'll see examples of diff pic sizes folks used that were not too large but still adequate to see the pic well. Or you can make a copy of your original resize it and post it along with your adjusted version in the thread (vs using an url link). Can't stress enough though be sure you do a 'save as' with a new file name, so you always have a copy of the original unedited photo as it came off the camera.
Hope that helps some, good luck. =)
edit: forgot to add, after you make changes to the renamed copied pic and like what you have, when closing your asked do you want to save changes say yes. If you want to make more adjustments from there open the adjusted version make more adjustments then do file save as, rename it, and when you close and are asked do you want to save changes say NO, now you have the first adjusted pic and another one with more adjusted that is called a diff name. I usually just add a 1 or an A behind the new file name if I want to make another adjusted version, easier to find on your system that way.
[ April 28, 2006, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Cat ]
Now if you just want to lighten your pics to see them for now, it's real easy to do with pic manager.
Here's what you need to do to lighten up your pics (I run XP so if your using something else some things may look a bit different but I'm sure it should be fairly close).
Open your pic file in pic manager. Now before you do anything to your photo make sure you save it as a new file (re-name it to something different than the original file name or it will re-write your changes over the original image). It's important to always have an original unedited copy of your pictures, that way you can go back and make different adjustments by saving it as a new file whenever you like. Plus if you happen to capture something you believe is pn you will often be asked to provide the original unedited photo in addition to the version you are sharing. Not to mention if you make a mistake and clicked save changes you still have the original to save a new file and start again. I sometimes have 4 or 5 copies of the same photo, the original and several others each with a little more adjustments done, or some are crops etc.
Once you have your picture open click on File > "Save As" (not save), a window will pop up where you can enter a new file name (for example current image is DSC100000.jpg, you can now change it to say backyard, usually the cursor is already highlighting the current file name so just type in what you want to call it. Before you hit save look at the top and see where you are saving it to, if you want to save it to desktop (for example) instead of my pictures or where it's currently saving then change the location. Now your ready to click on save. The original pic will still be up close it and go to the one you saved and your ready to start making adjustment.
Open your new re-named saved image. Click on edit pictures, a list of options will come up on the right. Click on brighten/contrast and you can then slide the brighten, contrast or midtone bars to slowly brighten your picture. You can also go to resize or crop, color etc and adjust as you need to. Just play with it trying different things, you can always slide the bars back to zero, or close the image click no when it asks if you want to save changes, re-open and start again. Or click on edit at the top tool bar and click undo until your back to where you want to be. OR if you don't want to play you can always click on auto correct (there is an auto adjust in color, contrast etc) and your puter will automaticaly make adjustments to the pic, if you don't like click edit and undo. Keep in mind it's best to do as little adjusting as possible so not to alter the image to much. You can always open and save as again, and do another one with even more adjustments.
I often find if a pic is really huge it becomes pixelated and if you make changes it makes things worse. So I resixe the photo down which reduces the pixelation some. Then I make a bit of adjustments. I find web small or email large are often good sizes if I want to post the image in the thread (sometimes have to use the % option and decrease them a wee bit after making it web small), if sharing by url link I will use a bigger size like web large or doc small. All depends on how the original file was saved (size) and how pixelated or not a pic is. If you are going to post your pics here, be sure to use an url link for the original (if it's larger) as only smaller images can be posted inside the threads. Browse the pic forum and you'll see examples of diff pic sizes folks used that were not too large but still adequate to see the pic well. Or you can make a copy of your original resize it and post it along with your adjusted version in the thread (vs using an url link). Can't stress enough though be sure you do a 'save as' with a new file name, so you always have a copy of the original unedited photo as it came off the camera.
Hope that helps some, good luck. =)
edit: forgot to add, after you make changes to the renamed copied pic and like what you have, when closing your asked do you want to save changes say yes. If you want to make more adjustments from there open the adjusted version make more adjustments then do file save as, rename it, and when you close and are asked do you want to save changes say NO, now you have the first adjusted pic and another one with more adjusted that is called a diff name. I usually just add a 1 or an A behind the new file name if I want to make another adjusted version, easier to find on your system that way.
[ April 28, 2006, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Cat ]