CodedColor PhotoStudio - Image Editing Tutorials

To demonstrate the diversity of photo correction with CodedColor PhotoStudio, we would like to show you some examples with different levels of complexity. All images were enhanced in only a few steps. Click on a thumb to open a larger image. The possibilities of image enhancement in digital photography are endless, and of couse we don't intend to play in the Photoshop league, but with CodedColor PhotoStudio you can easily correct almost all image flaws though a number of intuitive and professional dialogs. Every digital camera, no matter how expensive, produces photos in some situations, which are conceived by the eye as being far from perfect. To get a detailed overview of the improvement possibilities, have a look at our online handbook., or sit back and enjoy our live demos. But for now, let us inspire you with a couple of examples:

Basics

All Before photos (except #4) were taken from a 7 MBit camera. The pictures were resized to 800x600 for the webpage. All After images were enhanced with CodedColor only. Of course, taste plays a big role, and most results would probably look different when done by someone else. The errors in the originals are mostly unavoidable and result from difficult light situations. (Who owns a flash that can light up a sailboat in 1000 ft distance?) How intense an error is sensed as such, not only depends on the viewer, but also on the viewer's monitor. If the photo is, for example, viewed on a light intensive beamer, it can appear much less underexposed. You should therefore always backup your originals when doing corrections.

1. Simple Enhancement

Problem: extremely underexposed, due to a weak flash.

Before

After

Here's how it's done... Open image in the CodedColor Editor Call SmartFix correction

2. Advanced Corrections

Problem: underexposed, color stain, slight backlight situation.

Before

After

Here's how it's done... Open image in the CodedColor Editor Exposure Dialog: Autoflash with values 30-50 Use the Lasso to mark the regions of the sail in the center of the image Correction Brush: lighten the marked sail Finetune with different Color Corrections, depending on taste

3. Expert Corrections

Problem: horizon not straight, color stain, missing contrast in the sky, unwanted person in the picture. A lucky snapshot, but could be more dramatic.

Before

After

Here's how it's done... Open image in the CodedColor Editor Rotate Dialog: straighten the horizon Cut off extruding borders Call SmartFix correction Noise Dialog: remove JPEG artefacts Clone Brush: remove person on the left Finetune with Histogram Curves, depending on taste

4. Extreme Corrections

Problem: well, just take a peek at the scanned photo...

Before

After

Here's how it's done... The "Before" original was scanned from an old dusty 9x13 photograp. It obviously calls for difficult manual corrections. A number of steps were performed to remove color stains, scratches and scanner artefacts. The result naturally cannot be compared to a modern digital photograph, but further changes would transform the result more and more into a bad painting. However (since the person in the picture was working too much on CodedColor in the past years and did nothing for better surf photos), we would really like to see how you can improve the original photo (if you can call it such), even through the use of other programs. Just send us your result with a short description, and maybe we'll post it here! (Author and surfer: Henning Kuersten ;-)