Saturday 11 June 2011

Photo Editing

There are many ways to edit, or as they call it now, photo shop a picture. The program I chose for my photos is the picnik program. This program gives you the option to totally change or alter any picture of your choice. Many people use Photoshop to fix any blemishes or brighten up photos to their preference. However Photoshop can be quite controversial, as to the originality of a photograph. Personally I have never photo-shopped a photo, this assignment will give me a chance to explore the world and opportunities of Photoshop.


The first photo I decided to manipulate is a photo taken by myself in Wasaga beach. The Camera I used to take this photo is a Sony Cybershot Camera. Although I love the original photograph that I captured, I wanted to switch things up drastically. I decided to go for a more evening feel. This photo was captured in the morning around 10:00 a.m. To get the evening feel, I had to do some tweaking with the effects on picnik. The effects I used to get that evening sunset look is, an effect called sepia. Sepia is known for its dark brown-grey colour with a tint of orange toning, which is a specialized treatment to give the photograph a warmer tone. Following that, the next step I took was to make the photograph much more dramatic with the effect called boost. What boost does, is it punches out the strongest tone that is in the photograph. It magnifies the intensity of the photographs main colour. In this case I’m going for the more orange tones, to give it the feel of a close sunset. After applying the boost, I decided to go really vivid and brighten up the photo with an effect called Lomo-ish. Lomo is an effect that brings sharp, well-focused, well-composed pictures. The Lomo-ish effect completed the photograph I was trying to achieve.
Before picnik.com


After picnik.com
The second photo that I captured is of my brother playing basketball. The same camera was used to capture this photo. For this photograph I went for an older rustic feel. 1960’s inspired, I used the effects on picnik once again to create this look. Firstly what I did to give it the older feel was I applied the 1960’s effect, which rounded off the edges and gave it the brownish tint to the photo. The way the 1960’s effect works is that it replaces colour with brown and orange tints. Next I applied the film grain application and it gave it the grainy unclear look. The early cameras used by photographers that couldn’t obtain a clear image inspire the film grain look. Finally, to make it really rustic I applied the sepia effect just like the first photo that I photo-shopped. The end result is a really pretty 1960’s inspired photo, that looks as if he was playing at an old college basketball gymnasium.

Before picnik.com
After picnik.com



















My experience with Photoshop was a good one. I enjoyed the different effects that are offered in the program. It was really easy to navigate the site, and I can definitely see myself using Photoshop in the future.