Digital Photo Tips

I stumbled on this site while doing favicon for my site. BTW, favicon is that little icon in the browser. I haven’t done it for this site yet but you can see an animated one at my food blog, MalaysiaBest.

So, what is an Image Embellisher? Well, you just upload a pic from your PC to the site here at html-kit and they will know process it for you.

You get a cube like this which looks like some product presentation, ya?

Or a marble with shadow like the above.

And heh, to boost the vanity, a CD cover with your personal image. Pretend it is my platinum hits CD, ok?

Do you wonder how people got a photo with a collage of multiple photos?  Well, it is very easy to do if you download the Picasa 2 free software.

This is the working board on your Picasa 2 showing you a list of all the photos in your PC.  Just select the number of photos you want to be made into a collage.  A selection of 4-5 photos will be nice.

On the top menu, select Create > Picture collage

Next, you will get a choice of  collage to make like Picture Pile, Picture Gride, Contact Sheet and Multiple Exposure.  You can also choose the background colour, whether white, grey, black  or using one of the photo as background.

Just experiment with all the choices and have fun playing around .  I don’t normally make picture collages for my online sharing because I like my photos to be the biggest my page  can accomodate.

This is the Picture Grid option.  When you are satisfied, just click Create and there you have it, a photo with multiple shots.  Nice and easy, eh?  Here is the link to explain more about Picasa.

Majority of the younger generations probably never had their photos taken in black & white. But for those of us who are in our 30s and above, definitely have some babies photos taken in black & white film.

I still remember the excitement when I was about 10 years old when the first coloured photos appeared. (coloured photos available much earlier but we didn’t own a camera then. you can read the history of photography from
Wikipedia) Now, we view black and white and sepia photos as novelty. I know many wedding photographers adore taking wedding photos in sepia to achieve that antique look.

My cameras have the option of sepia and black & white. Once in a while, I twiddle with the button. I found it great to blur out messy background. However, you can easily turn your photos taken in colour to sepia or black & white with just a button. This way, you have an option to get a photo in colour, sepia or black & white. Otherwise, if you take a photo in black & white, you cannot turn it into colour photo.

A colour photo can be switched to B&W, back to colour and B&W or sepia.

So have fun playing around with Picasa 2 (link button available on the right bar) and create that special feel to your photos. It is a refreshing change to all the colour photos we see.

If you want inspirations for black & white photos composition, do check out Flickr. Flickr has a host of black & white photographs pool. I haven’t join any because their B&W photos look mighty artistic, so shy to join.

Long time ago, there were coloured filters like red, green and (i can’t remember!) which you can attach to the camera to create that different moods. But nowadays, with digital camera and photo editing softwares, you just need to tweak with a button.

Picasa one-touch button for changing your photos. 

Most digital cameras come with a selection of sepia, black & white and colours photos. I hardly bother to change the setting on the camera because I can easily do so using photo editing software.

Sepia makes this photo looks olden. A lot of wedding photographers like to use this sepia tone when taking photos of the bridge and groom and their traditional Chinese wedding garb.

Just another regular photo with green trees and blue walls. This is the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion which is not accessible to tourists unless they pay RM12 for the guided tour and the time is limited to twice a day at 11 am and 3 pm. *roll eyes* Such limited time and high fee (hey, the Penang Musuem charges only RM1 for entrance fee, ok?), how to visit?

If the sky looks purplish a bit, it is because I had adjusted the colour a bit to make the building blue-r than it is.

This is the MTV style of using extreme colours. It wasn’t easy to take these photos because the Punjabi guard who was manning the gate kept repeating ‘Tak boleh masuk’ eventhough I was only standing on the perimeter.

So, do experiment with those colour tuning buttons on your photo.

Mistakes are easily rectified with the Undo button.  Happy sepia-ing.