Edit Digital Photos
The tools in photo editing programs work best when
you make small changes at a time. It will be less taxing on your computer. Edit
copies of your scanned photos and store them in a separate folder from the
originals.
Do Photo editing tasks in the right order
Photo
editing tools can do a great job of improving the quality of your photos. Edit
in Tiff or PSD (Photoshop) format, if possible, so quality will not be degraded
during editing. Not doing editing operations in the right order can make your
photos worse.
- Dust-free
photos and scanning surface
- Scan high
resolution and save>TIFF format
- Burn unedited TIFF copies to a CD
- Crop and resize
- Black & white photos—color mode>grayscale
- Edit out scratches and dust
- Correct color
- Adjust contrast
- Sharpen and Save (TIFF)
- “Save as” JPEG or “save for the web” JPEG
You
will now have a restored Tiff copy and a JPEG copy in your edited photos folder. Tiff for print and further editing and JPEG for sharing electronically.
Crop for good composition
All
photo editing programs have a crop tool. Crop so that your photos follow the rule of thirds and achieve balance. Cropping will also reduce the
file size. Doing it as a first step will allow you to work with high resolution
in your photo editing program.
Crop
photos so that they retain standard photo sizes (2X3, 4X6, 5X7, 8X10, 11X14). Try to incorporate background items that give your subject historic 
context—buildings, automobiles, etc.—into you composition.
Many
photo editing programs allow you to do some image rotation using the crop tool. If not, straighten crooked images with a rotation tool before cropping.
Resize
Work
with the largest size your computer will allow you to use and resize as your
final step before saving to output format. If the file size is just too large
to be able to manipulate your image, reduce the dimensions of your photo to a
workable size right after cropping.
Black and White photos
Scan
black and white photos in grayscale mode. You can change these to sepia or do a bit of colorizing in your photo editing program
1|2 Next Edit digital photos- continued
More Photo Editing
Back to top
| Home | Overview | Preservation | Interviews | Historic Background | Video | Photo Edit | Genealogy |
| Website | Scrapbook | Write a Book | About the Coach | Site Map | Privacy Policy |
Copyright September 2009 Family History Coach All rights reserved Last update April 27, 2010
