Ugly Hedgehog Newsletter

Hi,

Is there a program that will enhance photos to add items to the photo. I have some photos that I would love to be able to add flowers maybe some bushes. Make the landscape around a house look bettr?

Thank you

Peggy

Ronny Loc: Netherlands

Adobe Photo Element 9

jwpulliam Loc: New Harmony, In

What you are describing is compositing, I think. Try Adobe Photoshop and use layers and mask out the portions of the picture you don't want to use. Then flatten the layers and you will get a composite of the visible portions of the different photographs. However, you can make a career out of learning Photoshop, so go to Adobe Downloads and down load a demo copy and then go to Scott Kelby's website explaining"Seven Point Program for using photoshop for photographers. Then prepare for a lot of work. The demo copy is actually a working copy which will allow you to test it for a month. Adobe Lightroom is also very good but I haven't done any compositing in it, just adjustments.
Good Luck

henrycrafter Loc: Orem Utah

I use photoshop 7.
It took me three years to become somewhat knowledgeable.
I highly recomend selecting one program then really take the time to study and learn.
Nothing comes easy and there is no such thing as a free meal.
Best of luck to you

mcdee01

Photoshop CS4 or CS5. Also, check out ACDC pro. Actually, any real good editing software should have functionality that will allow or assist in making the changes you mention. Good l uck.

Phrank Loc: Crystal Lake, Il.

The GIMP is a free photo enhancing and editing software that is almost as capable as Photoshop. I have used Photoshop in the past so I am somewhat familiar with its commands and can find almost everything I need in The Gimp.
Give it a try, you might like it.

Ronny Loc: Netherlands

Adobe photo element 9 cost you not even $100 and photoshop is at a cost of $1000.
I would play around with Element 9 first, because this software has many of the photo shop options.
You can do HDR, bringing other pictures in a picture and so on. Adobe is not an easy to learn software.
Learn Element 9 and later you can always make the switch to the pro software.
I am a retired engineer and have worked with several Cad systems, like AutoCadd 2d and 3d and adobe is very difficult.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

I agree with others that are leading you to Adobe software. Use a simple less-expensive one first and see if you want to grow into more features it can't provide then upgrade. PhotoShop is a major complicated and expensive package so don't start there unless you can buy CS3 or CS4 at a radical clearance price. If you are a student you can buy the latest educational full version of CS5 for about $175 and that's a major deal for sure. It's exactly the same but Adobe wants educators and students to start and continue on PhotoShop so they sacrifice most of the package profit to hook you because they know you'll be hooked permanently.

As others said, any Adobe photo editing software that uses layers is how you will accomplish your goal. A layer of flowers and bushes with all the rest of that picture erased so it is mostly transparent can be "laid on top of" the original photo you want to add these elements to.

It would be like creating a "transparency" for an overhead projector that has only flowers or bushes on it. Then you lay that transparency over the original shot and you have what you want. The layer can be resized and moved all around to position the bushes or flowers where you want them. You can also change the brightness, contrast, color saturation and many other things on that layer to make it match up with the original photo. Finally you permanently smoosh the layers together through using "flatten layers" and save it.

Once you start using editing software, sometimes called a digital dark room, you'll wonder how you ever survived without it. It's also the only way to scan, restore, and edit paper prints for archiving or retouching. I use it for old B&W family photos from my childhood all the time.

I used other editing software that was cheaper, such as PaintShop Pro 6 through 13, which taught me many of the same concepts that are in Adobe PhotoShop but when I tried the PhotoShop CS5 trial version for a month I was stunned and I now can't live without it. I kick myself as I wonder why I wasted so many years on other packages by other companies. I could be a PhotoShop expert by now!

Hope that adds something to help.

PhotoArtsLA Loc: Boynton Beach

This is a giant can of worms, even if you know Adobe merely licenses Photoshop from the Knoll brothers (since day one, but maybe the Knolls finally cashed in, I haven't paid any attention in years.)

I am a glow in the dark Photoshop expert, having used it since inception, even when the fastest computer running Photoshop was an Atari TT030 emulating a Mac with Spectre GCR and Dave Small's absolutely brilliant programming.

The problem mentioned, improving landscape in shot, is both very complex to get right and easy to get okay, but Photoshop is the tool required. On the PC, Paint Shop Pro may be a better choice, because Photoshop is truly annoying on a PC. This is why big ad agencies are essentially all Mac, as are most publishers.

The first thing you have to think of when preparing the digital fodder from which you are going to composite an "improved view" is lens height and tilt angle, combined with shooting at the same time of day, and in the same compass direction for each shot to be combined.

Having disagreeing shadows gives away the effect instantly. Also, as far as perspective goes, you need to be using similar focal length lenses, and using them at basically correct distances, to make a better blend-worthy element.

Once you have your elements which essentially have similar shadows and viewpoints, start compositing.

Simple root: bottom layer, the background needing new elements.

Each layer ABOVE the bottom layer features your carefully shot, composite worthy elements. While there are much faster ways, just get used to using the eraser tool, which can be set for different sizes and different amounts of hardness. Zero hardness feathers the most. In using the tool to remove what you don't want, ALSO get used to ZOOMING IN and OUT of your image to work to the finest, pixel level detail, like the edge of a single leaf at a time.

Can it take what seems like forever? Yes.

Keep in mind, one of the great photographers in the days of darkrooms and caustic, smelly chemicals, W. Eugene Smith, worked on a single print, the famous "Walk to Paradise Garden," probably for more time than anyone ever works on a digital composite in the modern digital era.

I have attached an outlandish, fun with Photoshop comp in which I threw everything but the kitchen sink into the frame. It only qualifies as a fantasy image, maybe on another planet. Still, it was fun to goof outside the pale of reality.

Fun and Campy Comp in Photoshop

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Why do you feel PhotoShop is annoying on a PC? I found CS5.1 to be as easy as PaintShop Pro or maybe even a little easier for the kind of fairly simple stuff I do. And things like cloning and magnetic lasso tool work WAY better than PaintShop Pro.

It would seem that if you work with a Mac all the time, which I'm sure you do, then you ran PhotoShop on a PC with different keystrokes for its functions that it would definitely be annoying. But I also suspect that if I were to try PhotoShop on a Mac after 30 years of using PCs, I'd be annoyed on the Mac!

Do, or did, these Knoll brothers sell a PhotoShop-type product themselves or are they contracted exclusively to Adobe only?

Perry Loc: Washington Michigan

I started with PSP 7, in a group called PSP Imagination Station, which I am a moderator in now. When I started in 2006, I didn't know jack about it. We no longer do beginner tutorials, but if someone has some background in PSP, they can cook book their way through the tutorials we do each week.

I now am using PSPPS X3, and a Beta version of X4 which is quantum leaps ahead of the Jasc programs that early psp to the last jasc program psp 9 was built on. Corel bought them out, and introduced PSP X, and then Xi, and then it really excellerated more toward photo editing and less with creating vectors and "fuzzy bears".

Perry Loc: Washington Michigan

This is indeed a real challenge.

I did some major changes to it using this new program from Corel that is about to be released to the public, and I made a few plugins additions, along with a flaming pear goodie called flood.

I hope you like my version of your beautiful sky.

Perry Loc: Washington Michigan

I saw a few flaws after I posted the first one, so I decided to take it down and fix the flaws before sending. Thanks for checking it out.

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

PhotoArtsLA:

Every time you post I feel just a little more amateurish. It both awes me and disgusts me at the same time.