Photo Editing

Having a nice looking web site often comes with sharp images of your business and / or business products. Instead of going for a profesional photo shoot, several other options are possible.

Getting images for the interface of a web site

Lots of free images are available, and huge amount for a reasonable fee. When you going to have a webs site for the next 5-10 years why not spend $30 on a professional image. As digital cameras have come a long way, most web related images and pictures can be done your self.

Product images

Always start with a test shot for 5-10 products. A generic size for zoom and thumbnails is suggested, as it makes the development of the web site faster, and later adjustments to the web site easier. Most products can be shot with a white background, which can be generally cleaned pretty quick in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Shooting a product image is n ot too difficult, however an average image needs more work in Photoshop to be cleaned up and edited.

• Photoshop CS / Photoshop Elements

Digital Photography

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Fireworks - 4th of July, Downtown San Diego

Most San Diego web design companies offer photo editing services. Especially for ecommerce web sites, cost-effective phot editing is essential, to prevent ridiculous cost in the future when more products have to be added.

Home > Training > Photo Editing

Which photo editing application should I use?

For professional graphic designers creating photo art, business card, flyers and similar files: Photoshop CS5, Full version of the professional Photoshop software.

When you sell stuff on Ebay or want to cut images, make basic adjustments, (Photoshop Elements approx. $90), has more than enough editing tools to get everything done.

Save for the Web

Original Photoshop files have all information and layers, which makes it possible to edit the image easily. Generally the file is a psd file: image.psd. To use an image on the web it can be saved as "save for web", which compressed the images to 72dpi and gets rid of pixels we do not see anyway on a computer screen. Different qualities can be chosen. Saving a files as JPG 60 - from an original file - will generally be a great compromise of file size and quality. Re-saving a web file, JPG 80, might be a better option, to prevent reducing the quality of the image too much.

Simple steps to edit an image:

Rotate: IMAGE / ROTATE IMAGE
Clean up background: MAGIC WAND
Make image clearer: LEVELS / ADJUST LEVELS

Jorge González Camarena
"Presencia de América Latina" mural by Jorge González Camarena, Mexico (1964-65) at the Casa del Arte of the University of Concepción, Chile. The mural was painted in commemoration of the 1960 earthquake.