The final image that you see when viewing a digital photo today is most likely not quite the same
as the image that was transferred from the camera to the computerit is better. A not-so-perfect
picture can be taken to an almost professional level thanks to digital editing and enhancing. One
such enhancement commonly used is the helpful sharpness enhancement. Adjusting the sharpness will
improve the quality on a fuzzy or blurry picture.
While almost every editor has the sharpness enhancement, not all are top quality. The best ones use
internal algorithms to help enhance the photo. The sharpness tool is exceptionally helpful for
blurry pictures or one with fuzzy borders and lines.
Today, one of the most commonly used tools is resizing a photograph. What is less heard of is
re-sampling. What is the difference? Well resizing is just changing the pixels, while resample is
using an actual algorithm to fix the picture so that is appears not blurry, fuzzy, blocked when it
is changed. With resizing to enlarge a picture some of the pixels will be doubled.
When you resize an image reducing it, some of the pixels will be removed; this why some lines of the
photo just vanish. Re-sampling on the other hand, uses algorithms to determine the new size of the
pixels. While enlarging, color will be added as a result of interpolation. While reducing an image
the actual pixels will be re-calculated. A quality image editor will consist of multiple algorithms
for re-sampling and resizing options.
Big question for everyone is how to convert photo files in order to get smaller pictures. This is
really helpful if you want to send photo files over the internet. There are two ways to do this: the
lossless and the lossy formats. Lossless means that the image stays exactly the same as it was
originally. Basically different methods are applied to get a smaller but virtually untouched photo.
The most common format that photo software can hand is .png.
On the downside the image may still be larger than desired, but the image will be entirely
unchanged. Lossy formats however will lose some information. The advantage in this format is that
you can pick the size for the end result. Lossy format most common form is .jpg. This will generate
small photos that can be uploaded easily. Both formats have their ups and downs. You have to decide
if you want a smaller original or can you sacrifice some of the photograph to make it as small as
you want.
Along with the importance of editing photos comes the importance of viewing your images. In order to
easily access your photos your photo viewer should be able to be customized, easy to use, have
printable contact sheets, photo enhancement tools, convenient for getting the pictures, be able to
manage EXIF data and be able to batch process images.
Another good photo viewer is Photophilia which is exceptionally adjustable and able to batch
process. Choose a photo viewer that you are comfortable with based on your computer skills. You can
opt for a viewer that is quick and simple or go for a more complicated viewer that comes with some
more functions. Handy functions to look for are slide show, batch processor, editor functions and
zoom factor.
