Dear Graham,
What an excellent idea for a website. Unique indeed!
I have a question...one or two of my pictures would look good on a wall but they are not of a quality to
show as photographic exhibits. What can I do?
John, Northampton.
A couple of things spring to mind.
Firstly, don't print it too big. This will only accentuate any bad points.
Secondly, if you have the artwork facilities on your PC, then do the following...
(a) Adjust the contrast, lightness and colour balance so that it looks a bit hard, a bit dark
and a little too colourful.
(b) Give it a very slight blur effect to soften any hard edges.
(c) Now choose from the artistic effects pallet one of the more common effects such as water
colour or oil painting. Experiment with different brush sizes, etc before making the final click (though if you don't like
he finished thing you can always 'undo' from the edit menu).
Thirdly, Enlarge the image to the size you want to print using the magnifying glass and if
there is no pixelation then you are ready to print. If there is pixelation then you need to either print it smaller or change
the image size electronically.
To do this, click on 'Image', choose 'image size' then change the dpi to 300 or more. Watch
the memory size though otherwise you may crash the system.
300 dpi is what most of the professionals use for exhibit images.
I have placed an 'art' photograph on this page as an example. Note how it looks a bit 'old
master' like. I have not used any effects on this other than boosting contrast and colour depth.
Finally...a good mount shows off even the worst picture at its best. Use a bevelled mount
board with at least three inches around the edges of the image and then set it off with a decent frame.
