Editorial: To The Rescue!

Here’s the scenario: You’re at an event. Maybe it’s an anniversary party, school pageant, or charity fund-raiser. Suddenly, the host discovers the designated SLR-toting photographer is missing.

What to do?

“Well,” you say, “I have my little digital point-and-shoot.”

“Great!” says the host. “You take the pictures!”

“But, but, but…” you stammer. Before you know it, you’re firing away, and everyone’s photographic expectations are as high as their spirits.

That’s the situation my wife faced recently with her deck-of-card-sized Minolta DiMAGE Xt at a Scrabble tournament for Literacy Volunteers of America in Nassau County, New York. She’s a snapshooter at best, and with just the Xt’s little on-camera flash, a room full of tungsten light, and subjects who were too busy doing other things to pose very long, her shots seemed destined to disappoint.

As you’d expect, the little flash couldn’t light the scenes evenly, and the shots had hot spots, shadows, and a dull flatness overall. The white balance was off, too. While the camera automatically set the white balance for the flash, not the ambient light, the little pop couldn’t overcome the tungsten. The result: poor color balance and a yellow cast in the background. If it had been a film point-and-shoot, the problems would have been the same.

Something had to be done.

At this point, we could get into a discussion of what is “real” photography and the permissible limits of “manipulating” or “editing” (depending on your point of view). But I don’t have time for that right now; there are people waiting to see their pictures. And here’s a case where photo-editing software can save the day.

First stop: A mass-market program such as Microsoft’s $69 (street) Digital Image Pro 9. As the box says, it’s the “#1 Best Selling Consumer Editing Software.” Its “wizard” approach leads you through the editing process, and automatic functions handle everything from removing redeye to enhancing levels. It’s powerful, yet stone simple. Just right for snapshooters who want to improve their snaps.

For these photos, however, auto wasn’t enough. So it was on to the manual controls. As the accompanying shot shows, five minutes’ work makes a difference. The photo is cropped (but kept to the same 4:3 aspect ratio). The Clone brush takes hot spots off lips and teeth. Click Sharpen A Portrait, and there’s new crispness. Zoom in and zap redeye. Swing the slider on the Levels adjustment to brighten highlights on your subject, and let other details be blown out. Use the white dropper in Adjust Tint to get the yellow cast out. Paint semitransparent white on teeth with the Airbrush tool.

But more subtle work like removing shadows under chins and the halo-like backlighting around the women’s hair...and doing it without making the photo look retouched? I think that’s beyond what a snapshooter wants to do.

At this point, Digital Image Pro 9 and other snapshooter-oriented programs, like ACDSee’s FotoCanvas, show their limitations. Move up a level to Jasc Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop Elements, and you have more flexibility and control. But if you have a big gun—such as $649 (street) Photoshop CS—why not use it?

With Photoshop’s vast array of tools and its smooth elegance in detail work, there seemed to be no point in stopping until the original shot had been finessed for 15 minutes. I had to fight the temptation to continue and make this the “perfect” photo.

OK, there’s no automatic redeye removal. But the almost infinite variety of brush sizes, textures, and opacities that can subtly clone out hot spots, shadows, and those halos around the hair is truly amazing. Look at the finished product. I’d say the picture has been saved.

Nonetheless, next time, I think I’ll stop by with my SLR.

	Original: The composition was too awkward and the setting too tough for the little flash.
	Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9: Snapshooters rejoice! Five minutes and an easy-to-use program give you this.
	Photoshop CS: A disaster no more! What a difference 15 minutes with Photoshop can make.