Digital photography

by Drew Patchell | 26 Nov 2012

Go digital with your photography, and learn the basis of cropping and removing red eye.

The age of digital photography means that the days of taking a roll of film down to your local camera store to be developed are long gone.

Digital photography and editing allows you to customise the look and feel of your photos from the comfort of your own home.

Microsoft Office Picture Manager has come packaged with Microsoft Office Suite since 2003, and is the most commonly pre-installed software program for simple photo editing.

If your personal computer does not have this program, your local library will most likely have it installed.

Cropping

The most important tool in digital editing is the ‘Crop’ tool. The high resolution and large size of most digital photos allows users to improve images by removing distracting parts of the photo and focusing on the main points of interest.

1. Open your photo in Microsoft Office Picture Manager
2. Go to the menu at the top, left click with your mouse on ‘Picture’. From the drop-down menu, left click on ‘Crop’.
3. You will now see that eight ‘Crop handles’ have appeared around the photo. Left click the handle closest to the area you wish to remove and continue holding down the left click button. Now slowly move your cursor to the edge of the area you wish removed and let go.
4. To confirm you are happy with this edit, click the ‘OK’ button on the far right hand side of the screen.
5. Once you have successfully cropped the image, in the toolbar at the top left of your screen, left click on ‘File’ and then from the drop-down menu, left click ‘Save’.

Removing ‘red eye’

Many great shots have been spoilt by red eyes. These are caused by light flashing off the retina at the back of the eyeball.

Most editing programs now have red eye removal.

1. Open your photo in Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
2. In the menu at the top, left click with your mouse on ‘Picture’. From the drop-down menu, left click on ‘Red Eye Removal’.
3. Holding down the left mouse-button, move your mouse cursor over the red area on each eye of the subject, one eye at a time, to select the red areas.
4. Now click the ‘OK’ button on the far right hand side of the screen. The red parts of the selected area should turn black.
5. Once you have altered the image, in the toolbar at the top left of your screen, left click on ‘File’ and then from the drop-down menu, left click ‘Save’.