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Photography Week #5: Quick and Dirty photo editing

Hello there, I’m Amanda from Kitschy Coo and I’m delighted that Sara asked me to contribute to Photography Week. The other guest posters have done a stellar job and pretty much stole at least 98% of the words out of my mouth. All that good advice, technical nous, practical examples… what can I bring to the table? My laziness, friends. I bring my laziness. I admit to finding photo editing software like Photoshop and GIMP completely tedious and time-consuming. It made getting my pictures shop or blog-ready a total chore. But then I found out you could do some Quick and Dirty photo editing using just your standard Windows Photo Gallery.

Please ignore the irony of me posting bad pictures within a post about good pictures.


Click on that magic ‘Fix’ button right at the top there. And then you are presented with an editing menu:


Unless you are in it for the laughs, don’t click the ‘Auto Adjust’ button. But you can seriously improve your pictures by adjusting the Exposure and Colour and by cropping. The Brightness and Contrast Bars are enough to really sharpen and enhance your pics. Here are some examples of how viewers might change their mind from Quick and Dirty edits….

Example One: Make-up bags photographed inside in natural light

Before: Those make-up bags are dreary and lacklustre.
After: Those make-up bags are snazzy and vibrant.

Example Two: Apparel shot photographed inside in natural light

Before: You live in a sad and dank dungeon.
After: Your house is second only to Heaven in terms of natural light.

Example Three: Apparel shot outdoors in daylight (proviso: Scottish daylight)

Before: Your child looks happy enough but has the pallor of a zombie or the perpetually unwell.
After: Have you considered surrogacy because I’d like to have a child like this.

There we go then, that’s my contribution to Photography week! Seriously, give Windows Photo Gallery a shot if you’re lazy like me and want the immediate gratification of being able to edit a whole album in less than ten minutes. I’d say 99% of my photos are edited this way, although I will resort to GIMP on special occasions….

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5 thoughts on “Photography Week #5: Quick and Dirty photo editing

  1. I’m a photoshop user (that does not mean my blog is filled with awesome photos, alas), and I always click on “auto-tone”… it either magically corrects the indoor lighting that turns my white design wall gray-ish yellow, or it so horribly distorts the colors that I get a good chuckle out of it before clicking undo and starting fresh.

  2. Kim says:

    I have not heard of GIMP…I need to check that one out! Love the effect on the serger ;o)

  3. KristyLou says:

    Sara – I have just been loving your blog lately. Especially these picture posts! I HATE the pictures I take, but have never had time to learn or research how to do it better. These quick hints I have read about are invaluable to me. Thanks so much, and keep up the great blogging 🙂

  4. Gazz says:

    This is very quick and easy way to improve pictures, thanks.

  5. CEI says:

    CEI is an online based clipping path and image masking service provider that provides high quality photoshop clipping path service at affordable rate.

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