Photography Lesson 3 Photo Editing

A lot of people, when faced with the daunting task of photo editing, just want to run screaming out of the room.  It's too complicated. It's too expensive. I don't understand.  How am I supposed to know what do or even how to start, when even the simplest explanations are written in some foreign language.  You have to spend a gergillian dollars taking a course to even begin to do the basic things. I can't do it.....

Oh yes you can.  Today we're going to start and today we're going to start with PICNIK.  "What" I can hear you all thinking.  "What happened to Photoshop."  Why aren't we starting with Photoshop."

We are not starting with Photoshop, because Elements does not allow you to do all the nifty things Picnik does.  You have to full blown Photoshop do most of them, and Picnik makes it easier to learn, a lot easier.  Now mind, you are going to have to have Picnik Premium to do them.  And Picnik Premium costs a whopping $24.95 for a year, but I think they have a free trial and I want you to use it.

Remember Miss Belle, our example for stopping your photos down. Well here she is again.

And here is Miss Belle after I did two things in Picnik.

The first thing you need to do when you're in Picnik is open up the tab Create, for all of the basics, you're better off in Elements.  Once your in Create, we're getting started with Vibrance.  It's on the left under Editor's Picks.  Open it up and adjust the slider until you like the how your shot looks.  Play around, you can always undo it.  Then on to Curves.  Yes, Curves.  It, too, is under Editor's Pics. I want you to take your cursor, midway down the diagonal line and lift the line slightly.  See what happens.  Then I want you to move to the lower left, almost to the bottom and just click on the line, dropping it a tad. Is this easy or what.

http://www.picnik.com/