Simple Digital Photo Editors
Ideal with a convenient point and shot camera for web and emails
Photos from compact point and shoot digital cameras may be ready to print but they do need help from simple editing tools to optimize them for the web and emails.
These incredibly convenient digital cameras do most of the processing required as they produce their jpeg files. They are designed to be printed straight from the digital camera and do not significantly benefit from advanced editing software such as Photoshop or the Gimp.
However, these files are still too large for efficient use on web sites such as myspace or as email attachments.If the main editing task required is to produce a more conveniently sized image, then one of the simple general-purpose digital imaging software applications may be the way to go. There are a wide range readily available at little or no cost.
Warning: always keep the original file untouched and in a safe place, and make a copy for editing.
Rapid browsing using thumbnails or larger views makes the organization and selection of images easy, and the same software can reduce the image to a more manageable size. Even large image files produced by Photoshop are quickly resized for posting on the web. Importantly, the simple editors can apply sharpening to restore the crispness of the transition between colors lost in the resizing operation, bringing back the image’s color contrast and punch.
As a bonus, these editors can perform a variety of simple editing tasks such as:
- crop and rotate the image.
- Automatically adjust exposure levels.
- Redeye reduction.
Here is a quick review of some of the available editors:
Picasa2 is available free from Google and searches automatically searches your computer for image files and creates a navigation library to the images. Very helpful for searching for a lost image or cleaning up those that you had forgotten about. Picasa2 does all the basic editing functions, with a nice tool to easily adjust the color temperature, even on jpeg images.
IrfanView is another free offering that as well as the basic adjustments it can to make icons for your windows desktop, as well as easy image thumbnail generation. While the browsing and selection tools are bit ordinary, the editing features make it a worthwhile addition to your range of tools, particularly as it is free.
Photofiltre is another program that offers simple editing as well as some useful advanced features. Browsing and file management is not the strong point of the version reviewed there is a later version available. The older version is free while the latest does cost, after a trial period.
The final item on our quick tour is ACDSee5. This has excellent browser functions for managing your image files with the bonus of editing functions readily available. The review copy is an older version that came on the cover disk of a computer magazine. You can purchase the latest version from ACD Systems, or search the magazine racks.
The accompanying photos were taken with a pocket sized Olympus point and shoot digital camera for emailing to a colleague at the function center, illustrating the room set up for that day.
