Manipulating Digital Photographs

Posted on May 19th, 2008 by Keith in Photography

Digital photography means that more people than ever are taking photographs, even if some are of dubious quality (See blog “Has going digital ruined photography?”).

More people than ever now also have access to a home computer and together with increased popularity of image manipulation software, this means that many people are realising for the first time that the picture they take is not just an end in itself, to be filed away and forgotten about. In fact nearly all images taken on a digital camera need to be manipulated to a greater or lesser extent. Too many people think that the camera does it all for them. Not so. In the days of film cameras you took the photographs then had the film developed. The same principle applies to digital. You take the photographs then you tweak (or develop) them using a program such as Adobe Photoshop.

Of course, we should still strive to get out photographs as right as possible at the taking stage, but it is nice to know that we are able to “fix” things later on the PC. Once the realm of specialist darkroom technicians or design studios, anyone can now manipulate their images.

With just a little knowledge of Photoshop it is possible to turn any digital photograph into almost any image – maybe even a good photograph! We can now alter colours or even turn them to black and white. We can tint, tone, adjust brightness, contrast, focus, twist, distort, manipulate. We can remove lamp posts from sticking out of people’s heads, change skies, add bits in, take bits out, and apply a whole gamut of special effects. In fact if you can think of it, it can be done – the only limitation is the extent of your own imagination.

As Albert Einstein once wrote, “Imagination is more important than Knowledge” …and how right he was!