Editing Digital Images

Spending time editing digital and scanned images can make the difference between professionally and poorly presenting a well taken image. Similarly a poorly taken image can have its appearance significantly enhanced to produce similar results to that of a well taken image being poorly presented. Several years ago I was in a similar position trying to present poorly taken images and several photographers very kindly showed me their recipe to presenting images which I consider to be some of the finest being exhibited on the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.rail today. Their inspiration has enabled me to go forward and I have written this article for others to benefit from my wisdom and produce even better results.  I use Photoshop 7 software for editing purposes and this is how I do it, which I profess may not be the best way, but it suits me:-

Uploading Images From the Camera - All images are uploaded from the memory card to the computer using a memory card reader and transferred to a holding folder within "my pictures" folder.

Renaming Images - Each image is renamed in the following format, "locomotive number-location-date.jpg" with duplications being given a suffix number at the end of the locomotive number i.e. 37417-cantondepot-100503.jpg

Editing Images - Normally I would go through the following rationale in order to produce an image of reasonable quality after pulling up the image and turning on the tools, options and layers from the window menu.

• From the Layers Palette make a background copy of the image by dragging it down to the Create A New Layer icon at the bottom and releasing. The purpose of this is to preserve the original and only do work on the copy.
• Straighten the image by selecting the Measuring Tool within the Tool Box. This can be found by right clicking on the Eyedropper Tool. Crop the image by selecting the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Tool Box.
• Resize the image by clicking on Image Size menu command within Image on the Menu Bar.
• Improve the brightness and contrast of the image by selecting the Levels menu command within the Image Menu Bar and Adjustments menu command.
• Remove any unwanted shadows from three quarter record shots by making another background copy, selecting the Lasso Tool within the Tool Box and outlining the area of shadow. Click on Add Layer Mask icon from the Layers Palette and complete the mask by selecting a Paintbrush from within the Tool Box. Click on Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon from the Layers Pallette, selecting Levels from the drop menu commands. Attach the Levels layer to the Mask Layer and improve the brightness to the masked shadow by double clicking on the attached Levels icon.
• Improve the colour balance by clicking on Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon from the Layers Palette, selecting Colour Balance from the drop menu commands.
• Improve the Hue/Saturation by clicking on  Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon from the Layers Palette, selecting Hue/Saturation from the drop menu commands.
• Improve Half Tones by clicking on  Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer icon from the Layers Palette
• e, selecting Curves from the drop menu commands and inserting two new sets of input/output figures of 75/80% and 25/25%. This will slightly bend the Input/Output graph.
• Sharpen the image by initially merging all the layers by clicking on Create A New Layer icon from the Layers Palette and holding alt and selecting Merge Visible menu command within the Layers Menu Bar. Select Sharpen from the Sharpen menu command within Filter Menu Bar. Select Sharpen Edge from the Sharpen menu command within the Filter Menu Bar. Fading back sharpening of the edges can be achieved by selecting Fade Sharpen Edges menu command from within Edit Menu Bar.
• Your screen should look like this now!
• Once you're happy with all the layers, they can be flattened by selecting Flatten Image menu command within Layer Menu Bar.
  Storing Images - Once the image has been edited it is normally saved at maximum quality level of the original size of 2272x1704 pixels within a folder for its respective class, for ease of retraction. As a result of this the file size increases from a nominal 2.2Mb to 4.1Mb

Uploading Images to Website and Alt.Binaries.Pictures.Rail - My images are normally posted at a size of 1024x 768 pixels. In both cases this involves further editing as follows:-

Hope this helps someone!