Post-Processing Your Photos

While modern digital cameras produce excellent results straight from the camera, there are almost no images that can’t be improved at least a little by running them through processing software such as Picasa or Adobe Photoshop. If you don’t want to spend money on photo processing software, there are plenty of free options available for download on the internet. There are even some free services that offer completely web-based photo processing.

The three most basic photo post-processing actions, and in many ways the three with the biggest ‘bang-for-your-buck’, are cropping, fixing exposure, and increasing contrast.

‘Cropping’ refers to resampling the area of a photo, usually while maintaining the same aspect ratio. So for example, you might crop a portrait in order to reduce the amount of space around the subject’s face, making it larger in the frame. Or you might crop a photo in order to remove a distracting background element that is close to the edge of the frame. Keep in mind that when your crop a photo, you effectively reduce the number of pixels that make up the photo. A photo that is cropped too much will begin to lose quality, particularly if it is printed or displayed at a large size. The advantage of a higher-megapixel camera is that it can capture images with more detail, enabling them to be cropped more and enlarged to the size of the original while still having enough detail to look good.

‘Fixing exposure’ means correcting a photo that is under- or over-exposed. Post processing software can fix incorrect exposure at the push of a button – look for an option to ‘auto-correct’ the exposure. Keep in mind that a photo that is very under-exposed or (even worse) very over-exposed won’t be able to be saved by post processing. This is why it’s necessary to get exposure right or nearly right in-camera.

‘Increasing contrast’ means just what it sounds like: increasing the range of contrast between tones in a photo by making the dark tones darker and the light tones lighter. Increasing contrast is the fastest, easiest way to improve a photo, and the results are often a dramatic improvement in how the photo looks. Most post processing software has an option to ‘auto-fix’ contrast, and they it usually does a very good job of it.