Lilahpops

Yet another reason to try out the special effects in iPhoto

Again, Cordelia has agreed to model for this installment in the iPhoto series of Tips and Tutorials. In this article we’ll make a cartoon effect using iPhoto.

I have a lot of photos of my cats and like many hobby photographers they can be very hit and miss. Sometimes, though, the expression caught in an otherwise ordinary photo makes deserves some post-processing.

The photo

Here we have a photo of my British Shorthair, Cordelia.

You can see that it’s quite grainy and blurry at the same time, very low light conditions and not exactly result I was hoping for. But the look on her face made me want to try to improve the photo somehow. So I decided to do a little more experimenting with iPhoto. In no time at all I had a cartoon/comic type of effect.

It’s all about smoothing the grain

The Reduce Noise option is the key to a cartoon effect. It smooths out all the grain in the image and almost gives it a paintbrush texture.

To start with I opened the Adjust settings and moved the Reduce Noise slider all the way to the right. Play around with this as you mightn’t need to always set this to maximum. In fact, I decreased it a little (to 89.0) as the effect made the image so smooth it became even more blurry. However, even with the decrease the eyes are still out of focus and as any eager amateur photographer knows - the eye have it.

So instead of decreasing the smooth paint-like effect even further I increased the Sharpness (to .71). Instantly the eyes stood out and the cartoon effect was still in tact. There was also more of an outline around the cat.

A few more minor adjustments

To polish up the final image I made a few more adjustments.

Levels and Contrast and Crop for an overall improvement. Saturation to bump up the color. The change I was most impressed with, possibly because I don’t use it very often, was the effect an adjustment to the Highlights setting produced.

Here is the Adjustments window showing the final settings.

And the final result. Voila!

If you have other iPhoto tips you’d like to share let us know in the comments. If you’d like to write a guest post about using iPhoto then get in touch with me via the Contact Form.

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iPhoto editing features can make an ordinary photo extraordinary

This is the next installment in the iPhoto series.

One of my cats, Cordelia, agreed to help out with this post. Gorgeous as the subject is, the image is a bit dull; there’s not much color and the background could have been better. And, I unfortunately cut off the tip of her right ear. But she is worthy of rescuing with iPhoto!

Before I begin I’ll make a copy of the image.

Open the special effects windows

In this iPhoto edit we’ll combine a few special effects features. So, select Edit and open both the Effects and Adjust options.

Move the special effects windows to either side of the image so you can see the changes as you edit. The editing sliders in the Adjust window are all at the default settings and you should already see the special features from the thumbnails in the Effects window.

Adjust the levels to brighten the image

Adjusting the levels is always my first step when editing. Sometimes a slight levels adjustment is all a photo needs. The left-hand slider controls the darker tones and the right-hand slider controls the lighter tones while the middle slider helps to balance the brightness and shadow. Play around with the settings to see which best suits your image. I moved each slider for this image. I also slightly increased the Exposure (to 0.24) and bumped up the Contrast (to 20)

See the difference these changes have already made. The background is more washed out and Cordelia is more prominent.

But, we can do more.

A tiny retouch

In the original photo do you see the tiny blemish under Cordelia’s right eye? It looks like I took the photo before she had finished grooming. Using the Retouch tool, I moved the slider to roughly the size of the blemish and simply clicked over the spot to remove it. Much tidier.

OK, let’s adjust those settings.

Add some warmth and saturate the colors

The Temperature slider can cool down or warm up your picture. In this instance, we want a bit of warmth so I moved the slider to the right (set to 6.5). This has changed the colour of her eyes to the correct shade of gold. The picture still needs some more color so I slid the Saturation to the right (up to 61). To remove a bit of the darkness on the fur I moved the Shadow slider up (to 6.1).

Each change is small but significant.

A crop and a matte finish

Cordelia’s is looking slightly more reddish than she should be (well, she is a Chocolate British Shorthair after all, not a Reddish British Shorthair) so even though her eyes are now a more true to life colour, I added a slight Tint (to 9.8) to tone down the reddish fur and bring out more of the chocolate color.

Now to the Effects window, I selected Matte. Then a slight Crop to finish. Why the crop after the matte and not before? I did try it that way but the crop was too tight and the matte finish covered part of the cat in white. So I added the matte and then did a couple of crops to get it just right. Having said that, the matte does help disguise the fact that the tip of her right ear was clipped.

Et voila!

If you have other iPhoto tips you’d like to share let us know in the comments. If you’d like to write a guest post about using iPhoto then get in touch with me via the Contact Form.

Related posts

• How to resize an image in iPhoto
• Add special effects to your images with iPhoto
• Use the tool in iPhoto to edit your images
• Duplicate an image in iPhoto

Always make a copy of your original image before adding special effects.

Quick tip

To make a copy of your photo before you start post processing use the Duplicate option located on the toolbar under Photos or by selecting Cmd+D.

But iPhoto won’t let me click ‘duplicate’

Making a copy of an image can sometimes seem tricky as the Duplicate option isn’t always ‘clickable’. This is because you can’t perform this action when you select an image from a Smart Album.

I recently discovered this after I sorted all my photos into various Smart Albums. Using Smart Albums is an excellent way to organise photos, but because it’s not a real album (they are based on criteria you specify such as keywords) some options are not available to use.

So, if you find you can’t duplicate an image make sure you are not in a Smart Album. Simply browse to the image from a regular album or from the Photo Library option.

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In iPhoto, resize an image when you export it to be used in another application

Resize a photo using the export option

Emailing a photo or posting an image to a website (such as the ones in this post) don’t need to be large files. In fact, a lower resolution is preferable so you don’t crash your friend’s email program or create a webpage that takes a lifetime to load. Resizing an image will reduce its resolution and hence its file size.

There are two options to resize a photo using iPhoto.

Option 1: A simple but effective way to resize and email a photo

Select your image and choose the Email button at the bottom right corner of the iPhoto window. This pop-up box will appear:

The one option you have is to select a file size: Small, Medium, Large and Actual Size. You don’t have the option to select a width or height, but the pop-up will display the file size for each option you select. The smaller the file size the quicker the photo will download to the recipient’s computer.

Select Compose and the Apple Mail program will open for you to write and send your message. This is the most basic option and will only be useful if you use Apple Mail.

Option 2: For more control over resizing your image in iPhoto follow these 3 steps

Step 1 - Choose your image

Select your image and choose File -> Export. A pop-up window with three tabs will appear.

Step 2 - Select a file format

On the File Export tab there are several options you can change - you want the Kind and Size options. The Kind option has five file formats to choose from. Three of these allow you to resize the image: JPEG; PNG; or TIFF. If you select JPEG (a common format to email) you also have the option to select an image quality, ranging from low to maximum, and this will affect the final file size of the image.

Step 3 - Select a size

On the Size option you can simply select Small, Medium or Large, but if you want a specific size select Custom. This is my preferred option.

If you choose Custom select a specific height or width. Click Export and save the image to a location on your computer. And that’s it!

Example of the various file sizes

If you are concerned about the file size of your exported image here’s an example of the different options on one of my photos.

The original dimensions of this image below are 1928 x 1427 pixels with a file size of 1.4 mb. That’s too large a file size to email or add to this post and you would need to scroll across the page to see the entire image. My preferred image size for this website is 400px.

Custom resize

Resizing the original image to a 400px JPEG breaks down to the following dimensions:

• maximum quality = 184kb
• high quality = 44kb
• medium quality = 28kb (this is the one I’m using above)
• low quality = 16kb

Small, medium and large sizes

If I simply want a small, medium or large image (without using the custom option) the original image would become:

• full size = 436kb with the same dimensions
• large = 192kb at 1280 x 947 pixels
• medium = 56kb at 640 x 474 pixels
• small = 20kb at 320 x 237 pixels

Remember…resize on export

I have to admit this resize option in iPhoto hid under the radar for me for a while but it’s actually a very simple process. Having the resize option available when exporting it from iPhoto makes sense. And most importantly, resizing an image on export leaves the original version intact.

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Enhance your photos quickly and easily with the versatile effects in iPhoto

I previously wrote about using the tools in iPhoto to edit your images. In this article, I’ll explore the special effects that are available in iPhoto which let you make changes to your photos in just a few clicks.

So, let’s see what cool things we can do with an ordinary image.

In iPhoto, select an image, however ordinary… Actually, I quite like this photo. You can see where the sun hits the tree branches at odd angles.

Click the Edit button and select Effects.

The Effects box

The Effects box gives you thumbnail previews of what your image will look like with each special effect. Simply click an effect to see an immediate change on your image. If you aren’t happy with the changes you’ve made click the center icon to restore the image to its original colors.

Looking at the thumbnail icons for this image I am instantly drawn to the Sepia option. The tree takes on a sunburnt aspect and the sunny background looks as though there could be a fire looming.

That makes a difference to the image…but it’s still not quite right.

Mix and match the special effects

The sepia tones look great and the sun bouncing off the branches really stands out. But let’s try mixing and matching the options to achieve a better result.

A color boost with the sepia tones might just do the trick.

Intensify the special effects

It might be too small to see in the image above but on the Boost Color thumbnail the number three is visible. I clicked the color boost option three times; it can be clicked up to nine times. Check out the image below, now the sepia combined with the color boost (at number nine) looks like a sunset…or a very fierce fire.

Choose effects that are right for your image

With a little experimentation you can really make a difference to your photos using the iPhoto special effects.

The Antique option combined with an Edge Blur brings a lovely nostalgic feel to this photo (below).

This combination of Matte and Vignette (below) enhances the view out of an aeroplane window.

Experiment and admire your new images

So, back to the tree. I’ve settled on the sepia tones with a color boost of four. Click the image to see a larger version in Flickr.

We’ll explore more iPhoto wonders in future articles.

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