Photo Effects & Corrections with PhotoFiltre P 330 / 1 Fix Colour Problems and Apply Stylish Effects to Your Photos in Seconds with This Free Software If you re keen on digital photography, you probably have at least one picture-editing program on your PC. In fact, having more than one program is almost a necessity, because most programs excel in one area but are lacking in another. In this article, I ll introduce you to a powerful free program named PhotoFiltre which excels in several areas, particularly colour correction and effects. I m sure you ll find it a useful addition to your photo editing tools, and it may be the only program you ll ever need! By Rob Young How To Install PhotoFiltre from the CD-ROM... Fast and Easy Colour Correction Using PhotoFiltre... Quickly Soften or Sharpen a Picture... The Finishing Touch: Adding a PhotoMasque... This article shows you how to:... Correct colour problems in your photos... Resize and rotate pictures... Add stylish effects using filters and masks Windows All P 330 / 3 P 330 / 5 P 330 / 7 P 330 / 12 You can install PhotoFiltre from the Update 1/08 CD-ROM in the Update Software section 35
P 330 / 2 The Power of Expensive Photo Editors at Your Fingertips Free! If you re familiar with the big names in photo editing such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro, you probably know that the top programs command high prices. If you ve been thinking about splashing out on one of these professional programs, hold your horses! PhotoFiltre may be a little-known program, but it can give the big names a run for their money in the photo processing stakes. It provides a range of easy-to-use options for correcting colour problems in photos and improving their quality, as well as a dazzling set of effects and filters (which give the program its name) to add a touch of style to pictures. Best of all, PhotoFiltre costs absolutely nothing! If you do already have a photo editing program installed, you may be wondering whether it s wise to install another. As I mentioned in the introduction to this article, it s fine to do that, and many photographers do. (You ll find extra information about using two or more photo editors in this update s Tips & News section.) Unlike some programs, PhotoFiltre is particularly computerfriendly too: it doesn t take over your PC or set itself as your main photo editor, so you can use it when you need it and ignore it when you don t. In a moment I ll explain how to install PhotoFiltre from your Update 1/08 CD, which is as quick and easy as you d expect. Then I ll give you a guided tour of PhotoFiltre s most useful tools, those for correcting and enhancing photos and applying special effects and filters. 36
P 330 / 3 How To Install PhotoFiltre from the CD-ROM If you d like to give PhotoFiltre a try, installing it is a straightforward job. Insert your Update 1/08 CD- ROM and choose Update Software, then PhotoFiltre and click the blue text that reads Click here to install PhotoFiltre. The setup program for PhotoFiltre will start and lead you through the installation in easy steps. Just click the Next button at the bottom to move from step to step. Along the way you ll have to click an I Agree button that confirms your agreement to the license terms, but nothing else needs changing. In the final step you ll see an option that says Run PhotoFiltre. If you leave this ticked, PhotoFiltre will start as soon as you click the Finish button below. If you d prefer to stop for now and begin using PhotoFiltre later, you can remove the tick beside this option before clicking Finish. Whenever you need to start PhotoFiltre in future, open the Start menu and go to All Programs (or Programs in Windows 2000/Me/98/95) > PhotoFiltre > PhotoFiltre. You ll also find a PhotoFiltre icon on your desktop and you can double-click that icon to start the program. (If you don t like having your desktop cluttered with extra icons, it s perfectly okay to delete that one: click it once to select it and then press the Delete key on your keyboard to get rid of it.) Getting Started: Choose a Photo to Experiment With Right, let s start exploring. If PhotoFiltre isn t already running, use its icon on the Start menu or desktop to start it. 37
P 330 / 4 Use an example photo from the CD-ROM In a moment I ll show you how to use some of PhotoFiltre s best features, but you d probably like to try them out yourself, so you ll need a photo to work with. If you have a picture on your hard disk you d like to use (perhaps a photo that would benefit from a few corrections) you can use that by choosing File > Open and selecting that picture. Alternatively, you can use a picture we ve included on your Update 1/08 by following these steps: 1. Insert your Update 1/08 CD (if it isn t already inserted). If the CD s window appears, close that as we won t be using it. 2. In PhotoFiltre choose File > Open. 3. Open the drop-down list labelled Look in and choose your CD drive from the list. 4. Now you ll see the files and folders on the Update 1/08 CD. Double-click the folder named Articles, then double-click the folder named P320 and you ll see two photo files. Double-click the file named Example1. Now you should see something like the following screenshot: the PhotoFiltre program containing a rather fetching picture of a toddler (unless, of course, you ve chosen a picture of your own to open). 38
P 330 / 5 If you are using one of your own pictures to experiment with, be careful not to save it accidentally. You might want to save the picture if you ve improved it, but only then! Unless you re sure you want to save the changes you make, avoid choosing File > Save, or pressing Ctrl+S, or clicking the blue floppy-disk-shaped button on the toolbar. If PhotoFiltre asks whether you want to save changes at any point, choose No. Fast and Easy Colour Correction Using PhotoFiltre Colour correction is one of the staple features of a good photo editor. If a picture is too bright, too dark, too washed-out or too shadowy, it should be possible to put these problems right. PhotoFiltre makes colour correction easy from buttons on its toolbar, pictured in the screenshot below. (If you can t see these buttons, choose View > Filter Bar to display them.) Brightness Contrast Saturation Gamma Click toolbar buttons to make fine adjustments to colour The buttons are in pairs, with the left button of each pair reducing the value and the button on the right increasing it. Rather than dealing with complex dialogs, you can simply click a button to increase or decrease a level and see the result straight away. Brightness: as you probably know, brightness means how much light is in your picture. If the picture is too dim, for example, increasing the brightness will lighten it. Use the + or buttons to increase or decrease the value 39
P 330 / 6 Use the gamma controls to adjust the range of brightness However, bear in mind that it will lighten the whole picture, perhaps making the brighter areas too light. Contrast: the contrast is the difference in colour between two adjacent pixels. Increasing the contrast will amplify the colour differences. Saturation: the depth (or strength) of colours in the picture. If the colours seem rather washed-out, increasing the saturation will make them more vivid. Gamma: you could think of this as controlling the range of brightness levels in the picture. If the darks are too dark, increase the gamma to brighten them without affecting the bright colours. If the darks are too washed-out, reduce the gamma. If you ve opened our example picture of the toddler, this is ideal for experimenting with gamma: click the button to increase gamma correction and you ll notice that the darker areas behind and beside the child become clearer, especially the grille on the fan heater and the pattern on the carpet. Like all good photo editing programs, PhotoFiltre lets you undo any changes you make to a photo. Choose Edit > Undo or press Ctrl+Z. It s well worth remembering this as you experiment: for example, you can increase the brightness, then undo that change and increase the gamma instead to see the difference between the two controls. You can press Ctrl+Z repeatedly to undo previous changes as well, or choose File > Revert (Ctrl+R) to reopen the original photo and start experimenting again from scratch. 40
P 330 / 7 Between them, these four pairs of tools should help you put right any colour problems in a photo, but there are two more that may be useful once in a while. To make the dark areas of a picture darker without affecting lighter areas, choose Adjust > More shadows. If you need to make the light areas brighter, choose Adjust > More highlights. Quickly Soften or Sharpen a Picture There are two more pairs of tools a little further to the right on the toolbar that are useful for enhancing a photo. The two teardrop-shaped buttons are Soften and Blur. These apply a soft-focus blur to the picture, which can be effective for close-up portraits and add a slightly dream-like touch to landscapes. The triangular buttons are Sharpen and Reinforce, which emphasise lines and edges in the picture and can help to improve a slightly out-of-focus shot. The double-teardrop blurs more than the single teardrop, and the double-triangle sharpens more than the single triangle. For subtle changes, it s best to use the single buttons and use them several times until you achieve the result you want, but if you want a more marked effect the double buttons are the better choice. There are extra colour options on the Adjust menu Easy tools to blur or sharpen an image 41
P 330 / 8 Immediately to the left of the four soften/sharpen buttons you ll find another useful tool: dust reduction. If your picture shows signs of dust particles on the lens, clicking this button should find these specks and blur them into the picture to make them less noticeable. Choose a zoom level from the drop-down list Make Your Editing Easy Using Zoom Photos taken with a digital camera are usually large often too large to fit entirely on your screen so the ability to zoom in and out on different areas of the picture is vital. PhotoFiltre makes this easy with the range of zoom options on its toolbar, shown in the next screenshot. Using the drop-down list on the left, you can choose the zoom level from a tiny 10% to a massive 1600%, or select <Auto> which makes the picture fit into the PhotoFiltre window. Alternatively, you can click the magnifying glass buttons to the right to zoom in or out in small steps. The last three buttons provide one-click access to useful zoom options: Original size: displays the picture at its normal size (equivalent to choosing 100% from the drop-down list). Auto zoom: automatically fits the picture in the PhotoFiltre window. Full screen: displays the picture at a size that fills your whole screen, on a black background, making it easier to judge the results of your work. Click the picture or press Esc to close this preview and return to the main PhotoFiltre window. 42
P 330 / 9 Full screen Auto Zoom Original Size How To Resize and Rotate Pictures The zoom options explained above don t make any difference to your picture itself: they only affect the way you see it displayed on the screen. If you want to change the size of the picture, perhaps to send a smaller copy to someone by email, here s how to do it: 1. Choose Image > Image Size, or press Ctrl+H. 2. In the dialog that appears (pictured in the next screenshot), you ll see the current width and height of the image in two text boxes. Before you adjust these, make sure there s a tick beside Preserve aspect ratio near the bottom of the dialog. 3. Now highlight the number shown in the Width box and type a new width for the picture. As you type, you ll notice that the figure in the Height box changes automatically. The size of the picture is measured in pixels. If you re not sure what would be a good size for the picture, it helps to keep a few standard screen sizes in mind. The smallest computer screens are 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels high, so setting your picture s width to a maximum of 640 pixels will 43
P 330 / 10 ensure it can be displayed on any computer screen. The next sizes up are 800 by 600 and 1024 by 768. Enter a new width for the picture The height adjusts automatically as you type Click OK 4. Click OK and PhotoFiltre will resize your picture. If the new size isn t what you wanted, press Ctrl+Z to undo the change and then repeat the steps above to choose a different size. If you are making a smaller copy of the picture, remember to select File > Save As and choose a different name or folder when you save it, otherwise it will replace the full-sized original copy of the picture on your hard disk! If you took the picture with the camera turned on its side, another thing you may well want to do is to rotate the picture by 90 degrees. Again this is quick and easy: the two buttons at the far right of PhotoFiltre s toolbar (pictured below) rotate the picture anti-clockwise or clockwise respectively. 44
P 330 / 11 Add Stylish Effects to Your Photo with Filters Now we reach the jewel in PhotoFiltre s crown its collection of filters. I ve mentioned a couple of these already (the soften and sharpen tools), but they re just the tip of the iceberg. Open the Filter menu and you ll find that there are many more to choose from. Open the Filter menu to experiment Items ending with an ellipsis lead to a dialog of options These filters are a cause for experimentation: in many cases their names give you a rough idea of what to expect, but there s no substitute for working your way through them seeing what effect each has on your photo. As you look through the filter effects available on the Filter menu, you ll notice that some end with an ellipsis (three dots) and others don t. The ones that don t have an ellipsis will apply the effect to your picture as soon as you click them. Those with an ellipsis will open a dialog to let you choose how the effect should be applied. You can see an example of this in the next screenshot, where I ve chosen Filter > Stylize > Puzzle. Here the dialog provides choices of colour and size for the puzzle pieces (but of course the options you see will vary from one filter to another). After Choose settings from the dialog and preview the result 45
P 330 / 12 choosing options, click the Preview button and PhotoFiltre will apply the filter to your picture. If the dialog is covering your picture, you can drag it out of the way to see the picture underneath. You can continue adjusting the options in the dialog and clicking Preview to see the result. Click Preview to see the effect of the filter Click OK to keep the filter effect...... or Cancel to remove it If you want to keep the effect of the filter you ve chosen, click OK in the dialog. If you decide not to use the filter, click Cancel. (As always, if you click OK and then change your mind, you can choose Edit > Undo or press Ctrl+Z to undo the change.) Use PhotoMasque as the final editing step The Finishing Touch: Adding a PhotoMasque At the bottom of the Filter menu you ll find one extra option: PhotoMasque. This is an unusual kind of filter that s usually best kept until you ve carried out all the other editing you want to do, because if you apply it too soon, any later changes of colour or use of filters could spoil its effect. 46
P 330 / 13 PhotoMasque applies a mask to your picture, hiding some areas of the picture while keeping others visible. Most of the masks work on the outer edges of the picture, replacing the square sides with something more imaginative, like the Watercolor mask shown in the next screenshot. A few are much more exotic, and once again this is a feature you ll enjoy experimenting with! PhotoMasque is very straightforward to use: choose Filter > PhotoMasque to see the dialog pictured in the screenshot, and click the yellow folder button to pick one of the masks. Click the Preview button to see the result applied to your picture, as you did with the other filters. Click the yellow folder button to select a mask Click Preview to see the result Find Examples and Tutorials on the PhotoFiltre Website If you re a keen photographer, you should find PhotoFiltre s basic tools ideal for brushing up your photos before printing or sharing them, and the filters can add a little polish to the final result. 47
P 330 / 14 You can find a gallery of images at the PhotoFiltre website...... and tutorials that make use of the filters If you d like to get even more artistic, PhotoFiltre can be used to turn a fairly mundane photo into something startlingly different, and it s well worth popping along to the PhotoFiltre website to see what other PhotoFiltre users have created. Visit http://photofiltre.free.fr, click English and then click Gallery in the list of pages at the left. You ll see a montage of small pictures and you can click any to see them at full size. Unfortunately there are no explanations of exactly which PhotoFiltre features were used to create these examples, but they may whet your appetite for more experimentation. If so, click the Tutorials link at the left of the page and you ll reach a list of tutorials which explain how to produce particular results by combining filters in different ways. Visit the PhotoFiltre website for artistic inspiration 48