Editing

You may wish to edit your images before printing or using in a photobook. Editing is sometimes required to improve an image in some way.
Having the ability to do some basic editing will help with the quality of your pictures so that you can be more satisfied with the final result.

Basic Editing

Basic Editing is available on tablets and smartphones with a variety of apps that can be selected to suit each person.
Although it can be quite easy to use a basic editing app, it is helpful to always consider how professionals manage editing in a definite 'workflow'. This means the image processing is done in the same order each time for each image.
For some images extra work is done but in the main the idea is to get the composition finalised then work on the colouration and finish with the presentation. This is for artistic reasons but also technical reasons where some changes can interfere with others if done in a different order.

Basic Editing could include:

  • Cropping - the selection of only part of the image to get improved composition or appearance
  • Rotation - this is usually done to adjust verticals like buildings or horizontals like the horizon to improve the appearance of the image
  • Colour intensity, Contrast and Colour balance - improving the appearance to better reflect reality of the colouring desired in the image
  • Sharpening - although cameras will sharpen the image, when an image is to be printed it may need additional sharpening

Image Resizing

In some cases the image also needs to be resized. It is not generally recommended to try to 'upsize' the image but downsizing is often practiced to make the image more suitable for web-pages, blogs or social media.
A smaller image size is used to make sure that online pages load to the computer quickly.
Some social media sites restrict size and shape of images although sometimes the image may be automatically resized for you when it is uploaded to the social media site.

The beautiful image below from Keukenhoff Gardens in the Netherlands has been resized to go in emails and looks fine on screen as shown.
It is sharp and has excellent appearance.

The image to the right is enlarged approximately double as would be required for a wall print.
It is not good at all! It looks a little fuzzy and the edges are not clear. The original picture to the left would probably print poorly on A4 size paper and could not be considered for an A3 print. Images resized for the internet are not generally good for high quality prints of even modest size.

IMG_2121.JPG KeukSmall.jpg

Resizing affects the file size of the image. There is less information to be stored when the image is smaller. The windmill image above is only 350 kilobytes as shown. The original taken by a professional photographer could exceed 20 Megabytes or nearly 60 times larger file size.
Quality printing almost always demands a bigger file size than one that looks quite good on the computer screen.

Advanced Editing

Advanced apps are available on tablets and phones to suit personal needs for quick editing or in-depth changes but more advanced editing for high end cameras would usually be done on a laptop or desktop computer to have enough memory and power to make sophisticated changes. Software that is able to edit large images (or longer videos) is going to be beyond a phone or tablet due to the amount of computer processing needed. The larger screen on a laptop or desktop computer also makes viewing images easier for improved editing.

Again it is important to consider the workflow which may include:

  • RAW editing (for high end photography the image comes from the camera with no processing)
  • Exposure Adjustment
  • Image layering (HDR processing, blending or montage)
  • Panorama stitching
  • Cropping
  • Rotation
  • Removing distortion
  • Spot removal and retouching
  • Removal of distracting elements in the picture
  • Colour temperature (white balance)
  • Colour saturation or desaturation (make a mono-chrome image)
  • Adjusting colour intensity
  • Adjusting contrast
  • Pre-set image balance (for certain special effects such as sepia colouration)
  • Sharpening

With higher quality concerns, it is important that colour balance of the screen of the device is carried out.
It is not feasible to colour balance correctly on smartphones or tablets so that colours may be dissappointing when printed.

Basic colour balance on a computer monitor can be done with software on the computer.
A more accurate result is by adjusting with a device called a 'colorimeter' and associated software but this is a very professional and costly approach.

Explanation of Terms

Colour Balance - the 'white balance' settings are rarely used on phones or tablets and not always on cameras. In some conditions then, colours may be too 'warm' or 'cool'. An image may look too golden or green when taken inside a room, too blue or brown taken outside in some environments or have some sort of other colour variation. This is caused by the type of lighting and can be corrected by correct white balance adjustment. (click for details)
Colour balance can also affect printing, particularly with printing at home where calibration of both screen and printer are needed for high quality results.

Colour Balance Example

The first image below has a problem with the 'white balance' in the camera.
The auto white balance has not corrected the picture properly and it has too much blue.

DSC00090.JPG

This image has had the white balance corrected when editing. The warm yellow of the sandstone rocks has been recovered.

Steps%20Went%20Falls%2004.jpg

The effect seen above can be reversed when printing.
If the computer screen has not been colour balanced properly the image might seem correct but when printed it may have quite different colour to what was seen on the computer.

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