This section covers basic image manipulation to improve your digital images. It will cover brightness, contrast and colour balance. All the examples below are made using Photoshop 7 but they should work equally well with other decent imaging software such as Paintshop Pro.

Colour balance is particularily usefull for underwater photography. Most underwater images will suffer from a severe green or blue cast and this is easily changed by adjusting the 'curves' - images 1 and 2 below illustrate what's possible.

Image 1 : Unchanged digital image with overal green cast.	Image 2 : Adjusted with 'Auto' curves. Note no green cast and better contrast.

Open your image then select the 'curves' [Image>Adjustments>Curves] and you'll see the box similar to image 2 below. To start with, simply click on the 'Auto' button in the box and observe the changes this makes to your image. If you are happy with the change simply click 'OK' to accept it - this is all that was done to achieve the difference in Image 2 above.

The 'Auto' option works fine for some images but you may find that it will not work on all. If it doesn't, you'll have to start manipulating individual curves in each colour 'Channel'.

Image 3 : Red channel to change the reds in your image. There is one channel for each colour.	Image 4 : RGB channel to change Red/Green/Blue together.

The best way to learn how to use curves is to start playing with them! Simply open your file and the curves settings and see what happens when you start manipulating the line in each channel.

To change the brightness of your image, simply click in the middle of the line on the RGB channel and drag according to requirement.

Image 4 : In the RGB channel click on the line at a middle point and create an curve to increase/decrease brightness.

Contrast can easily be achieved using the curves again but in order to keep plenty of detail in the shadows and highlights (darkest and lightest bits of your pictures), you'll need to create an 'S' shaped curve. Image 4 shows they line to create.

Image 4 : In the RGB channel click on the line at two points and create an 'S' curve to increase contrast.

Alternatively select the 'Auto Contrast' option in your software. This will often work but may not achieve the best results.

Read more about:

[Digital Photography]
[Pixel Basics]
[Table Of Resolutions]
[File Types]
[Image Manipulation]
[Images For Internet Use]
[Images For Print]