drudra communications

Photos are a key element of communicating. You may already know how to adjust the colour, contrast and brightness of a photo using the tools you have on your home or office PC or Mac.

But what happens when you are not at your home or office?

What happens when you’re helping your best friend touch up some photos of her new baby, and she doesn’t have the same tools and apps that you have?

What happens when you’re traveling and you cross paths with His Holiness the Dalai Lama… you quickly get someone to snap a photo of the both of you, and later when you’re at the cybercafe ready to post it up on Facebook … your heart sinks as you realise that the photo looks dark. Too dark for anyone to believe that the person you’re standing with really is the Dalai Lama and not Uncle Lee from the corner organic grocer shop!

That’s when you need something simple and easily available.

You guessed it. You need an online application, and the one I’m thinking about is picnik (http://www.picnik.com) .

This superb online app not only allows you to fix your dark photos (exposure problems), but also helps you resize, rotate, crop, touch up, add special effects plus present it in so many different ways. Of course some features are only available for paying customers, but most of what you would need is available for free. And the best part? You don’t even need to register or sign up to use it! It’s that hassle free.

So let’s get back to our topic of interest – which is to fix a photo that’s too dark.

Say we have a photo that looks like this.

It’s not that bad, but a slight adjustment to its exposure should make it look a bit better.

So here are the steps to follow.

1. Upload your photo onto picnik.com by clicking on the ‘Upload a photo’ button.
   
   
2. A browser will appear for you to find and select your image file.
3. Once it loads up on the screen (may take a while depending on how large your image file is), you’ll need to click on the ‘Exposure’ button which can be found just above the photo.
4. The following sliders and buttons will appear above the photo. Here you can click on the button ‘Auto-fix’ in order for Picnik to do the adjustment for you.
   
   
5. If you would like to adjust the exposure yourself, simply drag the Exposure or Contrast sliders to the left or right until you are happy with the way your photo looks.
6. You can also click on the Advanced button in order to adjust the Highlights and Shadows on your photo.
   
   
7. Check the Local Contrast box to add definition by enhancing contrast in areas with different-colored pixels making them lighter or darker to stand out more from each other. According to Picnik, for best results with Local Contrast, you should try zooming in first.
8. Once you are happy with the way it looks, click on OK.
9. Click on the ‘Save & Share’ tab which allows you to select any of the available options to suit your needs (see image below).
   

And that’s all there is to it. Check out the difference between the original photo and the adjusted one below.

You may not need to use this online app right away, but just remember the name Picnik (with a k!) and when that day comes when you do need it, you’ll be glad you read this post!

Related posts:

1. No money for a Photoshop license? Use pixlr.com instead Let’s face it. Software is expensive. But with open source...
2. How to beat your competition even if they are Google How to be better than your competition at attracting visitors...
3. Twitter your freebies away! When a company gives away something, there’s usually a catch....
4. Guy Kawasaki is giving away his first book Guy Kawasaki (author of Reality Check, The Art of the...