Photo Editing

Having a digital camera (iPad) to hand all day has many advantages (see previous post), but the majority of photos taken are merely 'snap-shots' - functional but not necessarily creative. Year 7 have been learning how to improve the photos they take. So far this has been achieved in two ways.

1. Take a better picture.
To achieve this they have learned about the way a camera works and how the image is captured. An understanding of shutter speed, light levels, metering etc is essential in understanding the limitations of your device, and also guiding your decisions when choosing location, angle, light etc.

2. Edit to enhance
While we've not gone overly creative just yet, students are now using editing tools to make their good pictures better. This could involve changes to brightness, contrast, colour correction, lifting shadows and cropping. Some of these adjustments could be very subtle, with minor enhancements being made.

Occasionally we can go a little bit beyond enhancement, and move more towards transformation of the image. The example below shows how one fairly ordinary image can become quite striking with just a few simple edits. The majority of students edit directly on their iPad, using either the iPhoto or PicShop apps.