- 1). Purchase or download photo editing software. Some of these programs are free; others cost up to several hundred dollars. You also can download trials to determine which one you prefer to work with. Learn all you can, using the help files and getting a feel for the program itself. Check out any tutorials and go through each item on the menu bar, including sub-menus in drop-down lists.
- 2). Take a group of photographs with your film or digital camera. Convert film images to digital by first scanning the pictures and saving them as named files in a folder designated by subject.
- 3). Open your folder of digital pictures. These usually have extensions such as .jpg, .gif, .tif, .psd, etc. Choose one image and open the particular file. Save the file with a new name, such as "flower1_backup." This allows you to keep the original intact while experimenting with the editing.
- 4). Look at the items in the editing suite or console and familiarize with what each does. You can play around with various effects and such, but the first basic steps would be find the menu item for the image size. Click on "Image size" and read what you see in the information box. Many digital images show high megabyte counts and either a measurement in pixels, centimenters or inches. Change the size to reflect an 8-by-10 image or whatever size you prefer.
- 5). Set the resolution. Some digital images show up as low resolution and increasing the resolution may distort the image, but on higher resolution files that you may want to use on the Internet, reduce the 300 pixels/inch resolution to 100 or 72 pixels/inch. Your photograph will shrink on the screen. Click on the menu item showing "View" so you can choose to see the image in its actual size, zoomed in or out. You now have edited the image size and resolution.
- 6). Find the menu item for "Contrast" and adjust the controls to show higher or lower contrast effects. This is another basic adjustment after sizing. Go through the filtering options to find "Sharpen." Click on "Sharpen" and watch the difference between that function and what happens if you click on "Blur."
- 7). Remove red-eye from flash photos if your program has that feature. Simply locate the menu item for this and continue. Each program has different ways to do this, so you might need your help file. Some programs rapidly fix red-eye with one click while others take several more involved steps.
- 8). Experiment with filters and effects. Try your hand at distorting, stylizing, adding textures and changing colors. Some programs have measuring and layering tools so you can get more precise with various aspects of each image. Also try adding text to an image, such as your signature on the lower edge. Choose the text tool (usually an icon with the letter T) and click on a font you like, then the font size and color and add your words.
- 9). Save each resulting image you like with a new file name. You can always go back to each of them and try different editing techniques.
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