This is a part of a series called 101 tips to make you a better photographer.

Tip #4 of 101: Basics of post processing your photos - Part 2
(AKA how to give your photos the professional treatment - Part 2)

Tip related to: Post Processing
Photography skill required: Beginners, Intermediate
Camera feature required: Any camera, useful even if you take photos using your mobile phone
Special requirement: You will need a computer with Windows (any version) or Linux.

This is a two part tip.
In these two parts we will find out how to:

1. manage your photos better so that you can find and use them whenever you need them
2. straighten the horizons in your photo
3. correct your photos for better composition, color, contrast and exposure
4. reduce the size of your photos to upload and share on sites like flickr, forums etc
5. add a border to your photos
6. add your copyright and other messages on the image.
7. get familiar with Picasa and GIMP for more advanced image manipulations.

Part 1 of this tip covered the first 3 points. (Click here to read the Part 1)

In this part, we will talk about the rest of the things in post processing i.e. reducing the size of the photos for uploading and sharing, adding borders, adding copyright messages on images etc i.e. creating effects similar to the ones you see in the photo at the top of this post.

Picasa is an excellent photo management and enhancement software, but it does not enable us to add anything to the photos. Adding things like borders, copyright or other text messages, etc requires an image editor.

The most popular image editor is Adobe Photoshop. But if you are a beginner and do not have the money to spend on Photoshop, I recommend Gimp.

Gimp is a free photoshop alternative and it enables you to do all the basic things that can be done in photoshop.

You can read more about Gimp here and download Gimp from here. Gimp works on both windows and Linux.

First of all, download Gimp and install it on your PC.
Then run Gimp by clicking on Start -> All Programs -> Gimp -> Gimp 2

This will open 2 windows for you. One will have a lot of small icons and a menu bar with menu items like file, xtns, help etc, the other will have layers, cannels etc.

For now, you can close the second window. It will prompt you with the message “Close all tabs?”, click Yes.
We just need the window with File menus.

To open a photo to work on, select the menu File -> Open (Or hit CTR + O together). You will be prompted with the window to select your photo.

Once you select your photo and open it, it will open that photo in a new window. 

Important Tip: If at anytime, you think something terrible has happened with your photo in GIMP, simply hit CTR+Z or use the menu Edit -> Undo (first item under edit).
It will take you back one step.

Adding a border to your photos

Look at the menu items on this window. The menu on the extreme right is Filters. That has all the fun things that you can do with your photo.

Click on Filters -> Decor -> Add border.

You will get a window like this.

Select suitable width and a border color (I prefer black) and click OK.

This will automatically add a nice black border to your photo and the photo will look like this. (You might have to click View -> Shrink Wrap (or CTR + E) to view the entire photo on the screen).

Now simply save a copy of your photo by clicking File -> Save As.
I suggest that you do not use the Save option.

Save will overwrite the original photo (BAD ).
Save As will create a copy of your original photo and save a copy with your changes. (GOOD )

When you are saving, you will be prompted twice:

• First message will be about Exporting Options, click the Export button
• Second message will ask you to select the quality of jpeg. There will be dragable slider at the top. Pull it all the way to the right and select 100

If you are not happy with the borders, simply hit CTR + Z and the border will be gone.

You can be more creative with your borders if you click Filters -> Decor -> Fuzzy Border, enter suitable options there and hit Ok. You will get something like this

Adding your copyright message to your photo.

To add any text to your photo e.g. your copyright message, we will use the text tool of Gimp. 

The text tool is on the tools pallete i.e. the first window with lots of icons that opened when you started Gimp. That window looks like this.

Do you see a large A in the list of icons. If you keep your mouse over it for a few seconds, a tooltip will popup saying “Text Tool: Create or edit text layers”

Click on it. This will open some options related to this tool below it. You can select the font type, the font size, the color of your text etc from the options below it.

After you have selected your fonts, size, color etc, click on your photo at the location where you want to show the message. I selected the bottom right for my photo.

As soon as you click on the photo, a new window will popup where you can write any message. 

After you have written your text, click Close. You will notice that as you type in the text box, your message starts to display on your photo below it.

You can shift the written text to any place on your photo using the arrow key of your keyboard.

To add the copyright symbol i.e. the c with a circle around it, then you have two options. 

Either copy and paste it from here © 

Or in windows, click on Start -> Run and type “charmap” without the quotes.Â
This will open up a window with all the characters available in any font.Â
Select the © character there, click on “Select” and then click on “Copy”.Â
Now you can paste it (i.e. press CTR+V) in the text tool of GIMP. 

Once you are satisfied, you can save your work by clicking File -> Save As.

Reducing the size of your photo for uploading 

To reduce the size of your photo, click on the menu Image -> Scale Image. It will open up a dialog like this.

Enter the value for either the width OR height and Gimp will automatically calculate the other value for you.
For general purpose sharing by email or uploading on flickr, the width of 800 px is ok. You can enter any value here.
Make sure that Cubic is selected in the Quality Interpolation drop down list.
Click on the button Scale.

Click on File -> Save As and save the image.

That is it. Your photo is now smaller in dimension (i.e. height and width) and size. Now you can safely upload it and share it on forums, flickr, blogs etc

Here is the final image again.

I suggest you play with other options of Filters Menu and other menus of GIMP. You do not have to worry about losing your photos as long as you do not save your photo. If you do something very horrible with your photos, remember to hit CTR+Z to go back one step.

That is it for today.

My last tip was: Tip 3 of 101: Basics of post processing your photos - Part 1

List of all the tips: 101 tips to make you a better photographer

In the next tip I will be talking about sharing your photos online and creating your blog using free services and why all this makes you a better photographer.

If you want to be informed when I write the next tip, just enter your email id in the subscription box at the top right of my blog and I will send you an email whenever I write something new.

If you have any questions or want to share your photos, post them in the comments section below.

Take care,
Gunjan
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