1000 words
by Apollo
Quite recently, my sister asked me to find a good photo
editing software or website that she could use to add effects to some
of her pictures. The one website we used to use was Picnik, but is moved to
Google+ and so began my journey across the entire worldwide web to find the
perfect photo editing tools and programs.
The first site we found was BeFunky which is very similar to Picnik. I decided to use some images from the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, The Snowmen, to test the various effects and tools it has to offer. You can click on the picture below to see a full size version:
On the one on the right, I used a vintage effect on Matt Smith and
Jenna-Louise Coleman and left the background the original colouring etc. I also
enhanced some the colour by used the brightness and contrast tools. To the one
below I added a quote from the trailer of the Christmas special and I blurred
the edges to make Matt and Jenna the focal point. (Note: I used the image from
the right with the vintage effect for the one below and not the original.)
BeFunky is a great website to use if you want to add different
effects, overlays, frames to your photos and you can even do minor technical
touch-ups and add some cartoon style objects or speech bubbles. You can also
remove blemishes and add some lipstick.
I then found Adobe Photoshop CS5, which
is not free but you can use a thirty day trial version of it to get you
started. Adobe Photoshop is quite hard to use for an amateur photo editor
and I don't recommend it for anyone who is looking to do small touch-ups and
has never used a program like it before. There are a
few tutorials you can look at online if you are willing to use it and
it is great for making pictures with multiple layers. While Adobe Photoshop is
designed for home use, it still takes a while to get used to. To be honest, I
haven't used this as much as the others and I don't know the little tricks that
come with using it multiple times.
 |
| The BeFunky image edited with another on CS5. |
Another member of the Adobe family is Lightroom 3. This has a more
sophisticated feel to it, but it delves more into the technical aspects of the
picture, focusing on lens correction and a whole lot of post production
corrections. It also allows you to manage and view large quantities of digital
images and is used by photographers to enhance their image's look and
feel.
 |
| Before and after comparison of the two images. |
In the above picture I on did a few changes to it. I
reduces to noise and smoothed it a bit to make it look of a higher quality. I
also change the brightness and saturation to make it look cooler and I enhanced
the detail a bit. At first glance it may look like nothing has changed but there
are a few minor differences. I personally like Lightroom because of the various
things you can do with the brightness and noise reduction.
The photo editing program I used the most was Photoscape. It is a
free program that you can download and it does multiple jobs like make animated
gifs, combining two or more pictures or add different filters. I'm not saying the
others don't do that, but this is, by far, the easiest program I have used. It
allows me to do all the simple things that I want to and it has some very basic
tools you can use to edit your images. The reason I like it the most is because
it is very simple to use and I got a grasp of it very easily. Here are some of
the pictures I edited:
On the left is a "three-in-one" picture of Matt and Jenna. I was going to add a quote, but I thought it would be too typical. Below, I combined the four promotional images from the Christmas Special and added "The Doctor Returns This Christmas" as a light touch. Also note, I used the image I edited with BeFunky for both (I have no idea where the original is now).
I also found some behind the
scenes pictures from the upcoming episode The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss and
decided to also edit them. For the one below left I used the effects brush to
make the background grayscale and for the one below right I used the region out
of focus effect to make Matt and Jenna grayscale. I absolutely love the original
of these two images. The only thing that irks me is that my shaky hands got the
better of me in the one below left and bits of Matt and Jenna are in grayscale.
 |
| Behind the Scenes: The Crimson Horror |
Another website I used was pixlr-o-matic and I even have the program on my computer. You can also use it on Facebook, Google Chrome (as an app) or on your iOS or Android device. It quickly edited the picture below to show off a bit of what it can do. It only adds effects, overlays and frames, but it is fun to use and the effects are wonderful.
 |
| Behind the Scenes: Time of the Angels |
I like to use all these softwares together because some do things
better than others and I find that no one editor is the best. I like enhancing
the images in Lightroom first and then adding filters and overlays with the
others. Image editing is always fun and great to do, no matter what you're editing.
So, go out and edit the heck out your pictures.
Websites:
Adobe Photoshop: www.adobe.com/products/photoshopfamily
BeFunky: www.befunky.com
Photoscape: www.photoscape.org
Pixrl-o-matic: pixlr.com/o-matic
 |
| Black and white picture of Matt for luck |
