PhotoImpact 6 Makes Digital Photography Easy

Tips and Tricks for Digital Dads and the Rest of Us that Want to Spice up Websites with Photos

Photos and article by Derrick Story, www.storyphoto.com

If you've been thinking about getting into digital photography, but don't know how to get started, you're not alone. Many people are confused about the steps required to get their photos out of their cameras and scanners and into the hands of friends and family.

PhotoImpact 6 provides photo enthusiasts with a wide array of creative tools such as the Colorize Pen that's part of the retouching tools collection.

Fortunately there are some good programs out there to help make digital imaging more fun than labor. One of the best in this category is Ulead's PhotoImpact 6. Not only does it handle all of the mundane retouching tasks well, it provides you with a wealth of creative tools that can help you create high-impact imagery. I'm going to introduce you to this terrific software application right now.

But first, just to help set the stage, let me review a few common digital photography obstacles that many folks worry about.

How do you change the size of your picture? A 1.3 megapixel camera produces pictures that are around 1280 x 960 pixels. That's bigger than your computer screen. You want to show your friends something thats more the size of a snap shot -- let's say 320 x 240 pixels. Is that hard to do?
How do you make your pictures look better? You did the best you could when you took the shot, but now it needs to be lighter or darker and possibly a little bit sharper? What should you use to do this?
How do you put your pictures on the Web? Do you need to learn HTML? Should you buy expensive software to help you?

Without answers to these questions, that old 35mm film camera and slide projector suddenly don't look so bad, do they?

The good news is that Ulead's PhotoImpact 6 can handle all of the challenges above, and many more. Let's take a look.

One Package Does It All

Ulead Systems has examined the process of working from digital camera (or scanner) to the web page, and then created an integrated software package to handle all of these tasks. And what are those basic tasks you're wondering? Here's a short list of the basic steps to transport pictures from a digital camera or scanner on to on a web page:

Upload picture from camera or scanner into the computer.
Adjust size and appearance of the picture.
Enhance picture with special effects (optional).
Place picture on established web page, or design new web page for the picture.
Post your new page to the Web so others can view it.

PhotoImpact can handle every one of these tasks plus help you send pictures via e-mail to friends, create digital slide shows, and assemble electronic photo albums. Let's take a look at how they do that.

The First Steps: Uploading Pictures and Basic Editing

Most digital cameras come with decent software for uploading their images into the computer.

If, however, you want to work solely in one environment, PhotoImpact 6 allows you to upload or scan your pictures directly into the application. As with all hardware device additions, you'll need to make sure that your drivers for the camera or scanner are properly installed in Windows.

I had no problem scanning a snapshot of my sister at Christmas time using a CanoScan FB 630U (with drivers previously installed). I simply went to FILE >> SCANNER >> SELECT SOURCE to let PhotoImpact find the scanner. Once it located the device, it added it to my list of identified scanners. Now, to scan a photo, I simply choose the CanoScan and off I go. The picture is uploaded to PhotoImpact and is ready for editing.

If you choose to upload your images using the application that came with your image device instead, you can simple open them in PhotoImpact 6 using the OPEN command after they have been saved to your hard drive.

Either way, now you're ready for editing. If you're not confident with your editing skills, you'll love PhotoImpact's AUTO-PROCESS option. It includes the five adjustments that are typically required for editing: Brightness & Contrast, Hue and Saturation, Focus, Straighten, and Crop.

The neat thing is, all you have to do is select each of these options, and the program automatically makes the adjustment for you. I was quite happy with the results. Of course, if you're an experienced photo retoucher, PhotoImpact has all of the manual adjustments you could ask for too. This application definitely has a sophisticated side too.

Advanced Editing and Special Effects

Sometimes you capture an image that you really like, except that it has a distracting element in the background that you wish just wasn't there. Or Maybe you want to change the overall "feel" of the image by colorizing it in a special way. PhotoImpact 6 has an excellent array or retouching and effects tools for just these situations.

For example, I really liked the previously-mentioned shot of my sister opening her Christmas present. It's rare that I can get such a natural smile from her. But those darned candle sticks in the background annoyed me. They look like they are coming right out of the top of her head. By using the CLONE TOOL, I removed those bothersome candle sticks and can now enjoy my sister's pretty smile.

I also like to play with special effects tools that allow me to colorize photos or alter their texture. I've found that with other image editors, I'm often disappointed by the results because the filters tend to be too "heavy-handed."

PhotoImpact's effects filters were a pleasant surprise. My absolute favorite collection of filters was the NATURAL PAINTING set that featured watercolor, charcoal, color pen, and oil paint. These are terrific effects that are capable of transforming a typical photo into a compelling image.

By using the Color Pen special effect, I'm able to transform a dull photograph into an interesting image.

Take a look at my boring vacation shot of Chicago buildings. The photo is nothing special. But after applying the COLOR PEN special effect, the image suddenly becomes much more interesting and worthy of showing to others.

Many of the effects tools in PhotoImpact can bring out the artist in you and help you see your pictures in a different light. Photos don't have to be an end to themselves; they can be the raw material that you mold and shape as your creativity dictates. It's fun to let the effects tools in PhotoImpact bring out the artist inside.

Web Tools: The Finishing Touch

Now that you have a collection of digital photos, what are you going to do with them? E-mail to a friend, post on your web page, create a slide show? PhotoImpact can assist you with all of these tasks.

Where the application really excels, however, is with web page design. Not only can you create a web page from scratch in PhotoImpact, you can create buttons, backgrounds, banners, JavaScript rollovers, and even animations. And best of all, Ulead has done most of the hard work for you by creating great templates that you can customize.

I was able to create a pretty nice web page in about 30 minutes. The page included a headline, a few photos, some very nice buttons, and of course, descriptive text.

This may be as far as you need to go with web page design -- at least for now. But if you decide to explore the world of dynamic web pages that include animations and JavaScript, PhotoImpact has these advance tools too. It's really amazing what they have included in one integrated package.

Recap and Final Thoughts

You may be wondering how PhotoImpact compares to more expensive image editors such as Adobe Photoshop? The most honest answer is that they are very different products that serve different needs.

Photoshop is still the standard for professional photographers and designers. Much of Photoshop's appeal is its versatile array of production tools and its terrific user interface.

But Photoshop doesn't have the variety of playful tools that PhotoImpact includes, not to mention the full featured web page editor. When I want to take a basic photograph and see how I can artistically alter it, I like PhotoImpact.

And if I wanted to stick with one tool for both my image editing and web page design, PhotoImpact wins again. It's a very well-designed, complete imaging application.

To learn about PhotoImpact 6 and all that it offers (I only scratched the surface here), visit Ulead's web site. You can read all about the product, download a demo version, buy it, and investigate all the tips and tricks Ulead provides you right there on the site.

Now get out there and take some pictures!

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