Taking digital images can be fun and viewing the images in a slideshow or screensaver can be rewarding. However, many RAW images need some fixing before they are ready for public viewing. We are lucky we live in the Digital Age as there are wonderful software packages for processing our images. I use Photoshop CS2 and its many tools. With Photoshop's tools, I can correct most image problems. Distortion caused by wide-angle lenses, crooked horizon lines, dust spots, exposure problems--Photoshop has tools for dealing with all of these problems.

Photoshop tools include clone and patch tools, the useful Free Transform tool, and many tools to aid in selecting the areas of an image to be corrected. Photoshop makes it easy to replace blown-out skies or add background with material copied from other images: in this way images can be improved or prepared for the slideshow.

The high contrast of the scenes we often shoot can cause problems when it exceeds the camera sensor's ability to record the high dynamic range. Luminance Masking can tame a high-contrast scene.

Once our images are ready for public viewing, we can quickly create professional-looking slideshows and screensavers for our enjoyment or to distribute to others.

A wonderful benefit of living in the Digital Age is that we can save our RAW and original images on nondestructive media, such as CDs. In this way, we not only preserve the images, but also reserve the option to reprocess them as our skills improve.

Programs like Photoshop are complex. Fortunately, there are many resources available to assist us in using these. These resources include books, magazines, and the Internet (with its wonderful eBooks).

The available software and resources make it possible to convert those throwaway images to keepers--and improve the keepers too.

© Copyright 2004-2009 by Royce Tivel. All Rights Reserved.

Labeled with ICRA