More Image Editing Tips

A great trick for improving indoor photos.

Dave Johnson

Feature: Photos That Include a Window

Windows are tricky subjects. When you take a picture indoors and include a window in the frame, the results are often pretty mixed--if the camera properly exposes the indoor portion of the scene, the outdoor light usually "blows out" the image sensor, badly overexposing the window. You end up with a glaring white rectangle where the window should be, instead of a view outside.

That's unfortunate, because windows end up in a lot of pictures we take. You may have even been advised to take pictures of people near windows to capture the natural light streaming in. What can you do?

Replace the Sky

One solution is simply to paste in a replacement image to eliminate the overexposed window. I occasionally use this technique when I want to depict a blue sky where there's nothing but white.

This is an easy technique that requires just the original image, an image of the sky (or some other appropriate outdoor scene), and the ability to use the Magic Wand tool. Ideally, your image editor should have a tool that lets you paste an image into a selection; otherwise, you need to add the sky as a layer behind the original scene. Since both Jasc Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop Elements let you paste images into selections, let's try it that way. If you want to play along at home, you can use a festive holiday picture that I took, which suffers from overexposed windows.

Select the Window

Load the photo into your favorite image editor and select the Magic Wand tool. In Paint Shop Pro 8, you can find it in the fifth slot down in the toolbar on the left. In Photoshop Elements, it's in the second slot down; in both programs the icon is intuitively wand shaped. If the toolbar isn't displayed in Paint Shop Pro, select View, Toolbars, Tools. In Photoshop Elements choose Window, Show Tools. Note that Paint Shop Pro stacks several tools in many of its slots; if the Magic Wand isn't displayed, click the down arrow next to the slot and choose the wand from the list.

Before we can select the window with the Magic Wand, we'll need to set the tolerance level, which determines how closely the colors need to match for pixels to be selected when you click with the wand. You'll have to experiment with the tolerance adjustment in your own images, but in my photo I found that a value of 20 gives pretty good results. Set the tolerance value in the Tool Options toolbar at the top of the screen. Also set the feather value in Paint Shop Pro to one pixel. (In Photoshop Elements, you'll need to make the selections first, then choose Select, Feather from the menu to add the feathering effect.)

Now it's time to select the windows. Click the Magic Wand in one of the windows, and you'll see a big section immediately become selected. Now hold down Shift and continue clicking around, selecting all of the window areas without including any of the surrounding wall. With the tolerance set to 20, it will take a few clicks in the center window to get it all; to preserve the bars that cross through the four panes in the side windows and avoid including the frames, you may have to switch the tolerance to about 10 or less. If you don't like the results you're getting, you can right-click to start over and set the tolerance lower. You can also undo each selection step by step if needed and customize the tolerance level to fit the special requirements in each section of the photo.

Time to Paste

With the windows fully selected, it's time to add the sky. I usually keep an image handy for this sort of thing.

Open the image in your image editor. To select the entire image in Paint Shop Pro, choose Edit, Copy. In Photoshop Elements, right-click the sky image and choose Select All; then you can choose Edit, Copy. Now paste the sky into the selection--if you're using Paint Shop Pro, click on the original image and choose Edit, Paste, Paste Into Selection. With Photoshop Elements, choose Edit, Paste Into. The sky should appear in your window. Save your new image--you're done!

Dave's Favorites: Make Your Own Documentary

Looking for a new way to share your digital images? With Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition ($20), you can easily turn a collection of vacation or holiday photos into your own personal documentary, complete with background music and narration.

All that is possible via a program called Photo Story 2, which comes with the program. I really like the idea behind Photo Story--it lets you become a storyteller with words, pictures, and music. It even includes the ability to zoom and pan around a picture, just like professional documentaries often do.

Photo Story 2 is entirely wizard-based. Just import the pictures you want to include, arrange them in the right order on a strip, and follow the wizard's directions to add narration to your slide show (you'll need to connect a microphone to your PC's sound card). You can even click on the picture you're talking about as you narrate and Photo Story zooms and pans appropriately. Add titles and a soundtrack, then save your finished masterpiece as a Video CD (which plays in most DVD players) or as a video clip to play on a computer.

Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition comes with a handful of other goodies, too, like enhancements for the Windows Media Player and label making software for CDs and DVDs.

Q&A: How Do I Copyright a Digital Photo?

I've noticed that many pictures I see on the Web and elsewhere are copyrighted. What is the process to get a picture copyrighted? Do I have to repeat the process for each and every picture?

--Carol Bar, St Louis

That's a great question, Carol. Copyright is not well understood.

Let's start with the basics: Copyright is the method established by the government to protect the rights of artists, regardless of what form their work takes--text, music, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, or software. Violation of copyright is punishable by law. And since copyright violation is a tort, the artist can sue for punitive damages as well. In a nutshell, that's why you shouldn't take images from Web sites without the owner's permission.

That said, how do you copyright something? Well, any work you create is automatically copyrighted. In other works, there is an implicit copyright on your work, and you don't need to do anything to receive some protection under the law.

On the other hand, there are copyrights... and there are copyrights. While no action is required to copyright something, if you ever expect to challenge someone in court, simply putting a copyright notice on your work before it's published dramatically strengthens your case. To assert your claim, just place a copyright notice somewhere on your image--use your image editor's text tool to add the copyright symbol (©) followed by the year and your name. That ensures someone can't claim that they thought your photo was in the public domain.

Finally, the most aggressive copyright action you can take is to register your image with the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. There is a form to fill out and a small fee to pay (it's currently $30), but this provides you with the highest level of protection available under copyright law. For the vast majority of us, though, that's overkill. For more information on the issue, visit the United States Copyright Office page.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week's Hot Pic: "Moon Glow," by Carl Sand, Salem, Missouri

Carl took this spooky picture with an Olympus C-2100 digital camera. He says that he enhanced it in Paint Shop Pro 8 with a variety of filters to get its current ghostly appearance.

We want your feedback! Send your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself to comments@bydavejohnson.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in the weekly Q&A, send it to question@bydavejohnson.com.

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