Quite often, many basic editing tasks can be done in the camera itself after the picture is taken including some simple cropping, removing red eye from flash photos, and rotation from landscape to portrait and vice versa. For many people, this is about all that they require anyway before printing out their snapshots, and this keeps things very easy and simple. But to start to realize the potential that digital photography puts in the hands of the average person, a photo editing software program will be needed where you upload your photos from the camera to your computer and then open them in the program. You can then begin to perform all kinds of editing tasks including more advanced cropping, change the file size or format, adjust color saturation, contrast and brightness, and apply special effects.

Have you ever wondered why the Hollywood stars always look so perfect in the magazine photographs? Why is it they consistently look so good? Their hair, teeth and skin always seem to be perfect and so beautiful. Is this the magic of stardom or Hollywood? No, this isn’t magic. It’s just Photoshop. Photoshop is the same photo editing software program being used by professionals in the entertainment industry to make movie stars look younger, slimmer and better. They have been doing it for years and now you can achieve the same results with a little training and practice using Photoshop for some of these same photo enhancements.

Take sides. If you are going to print your images as, say, 4-inch by 6-inch frameable prints, crop them to the correct ratio before you save the versions you are going to print. Suppose you have a picture that’s 400 pixels on one side and 600 pixels on the other. That’s the correct ratio and you’re all set. But if it’s 500 pixels on one side and 700 on the other – a 5:7 ratio instead of a 4:6 ratio – you’ll have to do some cropping if you want the printed picture to fit perfectly into the 4-inch by 6-inch space. Run your calculator (all computers have one) and do some of that 5th Grade math you’ve almost forgotten.

The best thing about digital cameras is that it’s easy to take thousands of pictures. That’s also the worst thing about digital cameras. After you’ve owned your camera for a few months, you won’t be able to find that great picture you took a couple of months ago if your pictures aren’t well organized or named logically. Folders are the best way to organize groups of pictures, and the My Pictures folder is a great place to start. In your My Pictures folder, create a sub folder for each year: 2004, 2005, 2006, and so on. This might seem silly the first year you own your camera, but after five years, you’ll be glad you did this because you can go back to your 2005 folder and easily find a picture from a vacation you took that year. Arranging pictures by year is also helpful if you’re scanning older photos stored in shoe boxes or albums that you took before owning a digital camera. This is also a good way to start organizing the pictures that you currently have on your computer.

In one wedding photograph, the groom stood still at the bottom of stone steps to an historic dwelling, his hand extended towards his bride, who slowly moved down the steps toward her groom. My six deliberate ‘clicks’ of the shutter created an airy, surreal picture of the wedding couple. Depending on the speed of the moving subjects, the shutter can be held down in rapid fire mode or each exposure can be meticulously choreographed: 1) each subject deliberately positioned in the frame, 2) one ‘click’ of the shutter, and 3) repeat steps 1 and 2 to the total number of multiple exposures you set in your camera.

Photoshop has opened up many new and vibrant ways to change and edit your many photos. Photoshop and other editing tools are the photographers best friend for photos that are perfect except for one thing or just for experimenting on colors and variety. Frame; There are unlimited ways you can put frames around your photos in Photoshop. Vignette; Vignette is a popular effect that involves a soft fade, usually in oval shape, where the photograph is light in center and fades gradually into the background where it gets darker. Vibrant Color; By adjusting the saturation you can turn an otherwise dull photograph into a masterpiece of vibrant color. You can even work with particular color channels while leaving others alone. As you learn Photoshop and start experimenting with adding special effects to your photos you will learn many more techniques as well as different ways to achieve the same effects.

Starting up a new photography business isn’t just fun and games. You’re going to need to do is advertise. You’ll have to print out business cards, take out ads in magazines and newspapers and more or less get the word out that you exist. If you’re hoping to break into the field taking photos for a magazine like Playboy, then you’re going to have to first get some private work photographing models in order to submit these photos to the magazine itself. Before you do that though, you’re going to have to write to the magazine for permission to send photos. Most publications do not accept unsolicited material.

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