Photo Editing

Introduction
Photo editing is an art and craft for effective
communication. Every photograph once edited looks like
a masterpiece, but at the same time photo editing is a
pain staking and creative job which requires both skill
and knowledge of the various tools to be employed to
give the raw pictures a final touch.

The various techniques and jargons carried out for

photo editing are defined as:

 Selection: selecting objects and tools for editing

 Cropping: cropping picture or area
 enlarging (blowing up): increasing the size of a
given image
 reducing : reducing the pixels or the size of the
image
 sizing : giving the correct size or shape to an object
or picture
 retouching: Working on a given picture in order to
correct the deformities
 reproduction: to produce again a given effect

The major editing programs used for editing are:

 Adobe Photoshop
 Coral Paint shop
 Picasa
  Photoscape
 GIMP
 Serif Photo plus
 Xara Photo designer
 Ulead photo impact
 Photo impression

Given is a process of photo editing, which will also

introduce the students to the various tools of editing used
in most of the given software.
Now we shall take a look at various elements and
understand its working and usage:

Selection:
Selection stands out as the primary and most important
function. In fact one of the pre-requisite for many of the
applications mentioned below is a method of selecting
parts of an image, and thus applying change selectively
without affecting the entire picture. Most graphics
programs have several means of accomplishing this such
as:
 a marquee tool for selecting polygon shapes
 a lasso tool for freehand selection of a region
 a magic wand tool that selects objects or region in
the image defined by proximity of colour or
luminance.
 Vector based tools

There are also some more advance facilities such

as:
 Edge detection
 Masking
  Alpha compositing and colour
 Channel based extraction

The border of a selected area in an image is often

animated with the marching ants effect to help the user
to distinguish the selection border from the image
background.

Layers:
Another feature common to many graphic application is
that of layers. Layers are analogous to sheets of
transparent acetate (each containing separate elements
that make up a combined picture), stacked on top of
each other each capable of being individually positioned ,
altered and blended with the layers below, without
affecting any of the elements on the other layers.
This is a fundamental workflow which has become the
norm for the majority of programs on the market today,
and enables maximum flexibility for the user while
maintaining non-destructive editing principles and ease of
use.

Image alteration:
Image editors can resize images in a process often called
image scaling, making them larger, or smaller. High
image resolution cameras can produce large images
which are often reduced in size for Internet use.
Image editor programs use a mathematical process
called re-sampling to calculate new pixel values whose
spacing is larger or smaller than the original pixel values.
Images for Internet use are kept small, say 640 x 480
pixels which would equal 0.3 megapixels.
Cropping an image
Digital editors are used to crop images. Cropping creates
a new image by selecting a desired rectangular portion
from the image being cropped. The unwanted part of the
image is discarded.
Image cropping does not reduce the resolution of the
area cropped. Best results are obtained when the original
image has a high resolution. A primary reason for
cropping is to improve the image composition in the new
image.
Image editors have provisions to create an image
histogram of the image being edited. The histogram plots
the number of pixels in the image (vertical axis) with a
particular brightness value (horizontal axis).
Algorithms in the digital editor allow the user to visually
adjust the brightness value of each pixel and to
dynamically display the results as adjustments are made.
Improvements in picture brightness and contrast can
thus be obtained.
Noise reduction
Image editors may feature a number of algorithms which
can add or remove noise in an image. Some
JPEG artifacts can be removed; dust and scratches can
be removed and an image can be de-speckled. Noise
reduction merely estimates the state of the scene without
the noise and is not a substitute for obtaining a "cleaner"
image.
Excessive noise reduction leads to a loss of detail, and its
application is hence subject to a trade-off between the
undesirability of the noise itself and that of the reduction
artifacts.
Noise tends to invade images when pictures are taken in
low light settings. A new picture can be given an
'antiquated' effect by adding uniform monochrome noise.

Removal of unwanted elements

Most image editors can be used to remove unwanted
branches, etc., using a "clone" tool. Removing these
distracting elements draws focus to the subject,
improving overall composition.
Selective color change
Some image editors have color swapping abilities to
selectively change the color of specific items in an image,
given that the selected items are within a specific color
range.
Image orientation
Image editors are capable of altering an image to be
rotated in any direction and to any degree. Mirror
images can be created and images can be
horizontally flipped or vertically flopped.
A small rotation of several degrees is often enough to
level the horizon, correct verticality (of a building, for
example), or both. Rotated images usually
require cropping afterwards, in order to remove the
resulting gaps at the image edges.
Perspective control and distortion
Some image editors allow the user to distort (or
"transform") the shape of an image. While this might also
be useful for special effects, it is the preferred method of
correcting the typical perspective distortion which results
from photographs being taken at an oblique angle to
a rectilinear subject.
Care is needed while performing this task, as the image
is reprocessed using interpolation of adjacent pixels,
which may reduce overall image definition.
The effect mimics the use of a perspective control lens,
which achieves a similar correction in-camera without
loss of definition.
Lens correction
Photo manipulation packages have functions to correct
images for various lens distortions including
pincushion, fisheye and barrel distortions. The corrections
are in most cases subtle, but can improve the
appearance of some photographs.
Enhancing images
In computer graphics, the process of improving the
quality of a digitally stored image by manipulating the
image with software. It is quite easy, for example, to
make an image lighter or darker, or to increase or
decrease contrast.
Advanced photo enhancement software also supports
many filters for altering images in various ways.
Programs specialized for image enhancement are
sometimes called image editors.
Sharpening and softening images
Graphics programs can be used to both sharpen and blur
images in a number of ways, such as un-sharp
masking or de-convolution.
Portraits often appear more pleasing when selectively
softened (particularly the skin and the background) to
better make the subject stand out.
This can be achieved with a camera by using a
large aperture, or in the image editor by making a
selection and then blurring it. Edge enhancement is an
extremely common technique used to make images
appear sharper, although purists frown on the result as
appearing unnatural.

Selecting and merging of images

Many graphics applications are capable of merging one or
more individual images into a single file. The orientation
and placement of each image can be controlled.
When selecting a raster image that is not rectangular, it
requires separating the edges from the background, also
known as silhouetting, it’s the digital part of cutting out
images.
Clipping paths may be used to add silhouetted images to
vector graphics or page layout files that retain vector
data. Alpha compositing, allows for soft translucent edges
when selecting images.
There are a number of ways to silhouette an image with
soft edges including selecting the image or its
background by sampling similar colors, selecting the
edges by raster tracing, or converting a clipping path to a
raster selection.
Once the image is selected, it may be copied and pasted
into another section of the same file, or into a separate
file. The selection may also be saved in what is known as
an alpha channel.
A popular way to create a composite image is to use
transparent layers. The background image is used as the
bottom layer, and the image with parts to be added are
placed in a layer above that.
Using an image layer mask, all but the parts to be
merged are hidden from the layer, giving the impression
that these parts have been added to the background
layer. Performing a merge in this manner preserves all of
the pixel data on both layers to more easily enable future
changes in the new merged image.
Slicing of images
A more recent tool in digital image editing software is the
image slicer. Parts of images for graphical user interfaces
or web pages are easily sliced, labeled and saved
separately from whole images so the parts can be
handled individually by the display medium. This is useful
to allow dynamic swapping via interactivity or animating
parts of an image in the final presentation.
Special effects
Image editors usually have a list of special effects that
can create unusual results. Images may be skewed and
distorted in various ways.
Scores of special effects can be applied to an image
which include various forms of distortion, artistic effects,
geometric transforms and texture effects, or
combinations thereof.

Change color depth

It is possible, using software, to change the color
depth of images. Common color depths are 2, 4, 16, 256,
65,536 and 16.7 million colors. The JPEG and PNG image
formats are capable of storing 16.7 million colors (equal
to 256 luminance values per color channel).
In addition, grayscale images of 8 bits or less can be
created, usually via conversion and down-sampling from
a full-color image. Grayscale conversion is useful for
reducing file size dramatically when the original
photographic print was monochrome, but a color tint has
been introduced due to aging effects.

Contrast change and brightening

Image editors have provisions to simultaneously change
the contrast of images and brighten or darken the image.
Underexposed images can often be improved by using
this feature. Recent advances have allowed more
intelligent exposure correction whereby only pixels below
a particular luminosity threshold are brightened, thereby
brightening underexposed shadows without affecting the
rest of the image.
The exact transformation that is applied to each color
channel can vary from editor to editor. GIMP applies the
following formula:
if (brightness < 0.0) value = value * ( 1.0 +
brightness);
else value = value + ((1 - value) *
brightness);
value = (value - 0.5) * (tan ((contrast + 1) * PI/4) ) +
0.5;
where value is the input color value in the 0..1 range
and brightness and contrast are in the -1..1 range.
Gamma correction
In addition to the capability of changing the images'
brightness and/or contrast in a non-linear fashion, most
current image editors provide an opportunity to
manipulate the images' gamma value.
Gamma correction is particularly useful for bringing
details that would be hard to see on most computer
monitors out of shadows. In some image editing software
this is called "curves", usually a tool found in the color
menu, and no reference to "gamma" is used anywhere in
the program or the program documentation.
Strictly speaking, the curves tool usually does more than
simple gamma correction, since one can construct
complex curves with multiple inflection points, but when
no dedicated gamma correction tool is provided, it can
achieve the same effect.
Color adjustments
The color of images can be altered in a variety of ways.
Colors can be faded in and out, and tones can be
changed using curves or other tools. The color balance
can be improved, which is important if the picture was
shot indoors with daylight film, or shot on a camera with
the white balance incorrectly set.
Special effects, like sepia and grayscale, can be added to
an image. In addition, more complicated procedures such
as the mixing of color channels are possible using more
advanced graphics editors.
The red-eye effect , which occurs when flash photos are
taken when the pupil is too widely open (so that light
from the flash that passes into the eye through the pupil
reflects off the fundus at the back of the eyeball), can
also be eliminated at this stage.

Printing
Controlling the print size and quality of digital images
requires an understanding of the pixels-per-inch (ppi)
variable that is stored in the image file and sometimes
used to control the size of the printed image.
Within Adobe Photoshop's Image Size dialog, the image
editor allows the user to manipulate both pixel
dimensions and the size of the image on the printed
document.
These parameters work together to produce a printed
image of the desired size and quality. Pixels per inch of
the image, pixel per inch of the computer monitor, and
dots per inch on the printed document are related, but in
use are very different.
The Image Size dialog can be used as an image
calculator of sorts. For example, a 1600 × 1200 image
with a resolution of 200 ppi will produce a printed image
of 8 × 6 inches. The same image with 400 ppi will
produce a printed image of 4 × 3 inches. Change the
resolution to 800 ppi, and the same image now prints out
at 2 × 1.5 inches.
All three printed images contain the same data (1600 ×
1200 pixels), but the pixels are closer together on the
smaller prints, so the smaller images will potentially look
sharp when the larger ones do not. The quality of the
image will also depend on the capability of the printer.