Cropping a picture
By cropping you remove some of the original photograph to accomplish a number of things:
- enlarge the main subject
- eliminate distracting parts
- improve composition (arrangement of subjects)
- focus attention on the subject
- change the format to fit a standard paper or frame size

Note: When you crop, be careful not to select too small a portion of your photo. If you do, there may not be enough digital data to render a pleasing print.

Adjusting contrast
Contrast is the difference in brightness between lightest and darkest tones in a picture. A picture with too much contrast has highlights (lighter tones) that are too bright and have no detail, shadow areas that are too black, and bright, unnatural-looking colors in between. A picture with too little contrast looks dull, with muted colors, no true blacks, and grayish highlights.

Most picture-editing software programs have a menu option called Contrast. Correct the contrast of your picture by moving the slider or other control.

Adjusting brightness
Use the brightness or exposure adjustment to change the overall brightness of a picture. You can lighten a picture that's too dark, or darken one that's too light.

In most picture-editing software programs, there will be a menu option called Brightness or Exposure. You can correct the brightness of your picture by moving the slider or other control.

Correcting color balance
To determine whether or not you need to adjust the overall color, look primarily at two areas: people's faces and objects that should be white or gray. If the faces look good, you will probably be happy with the picture. If they don't, look at the white or gray areas to see if they have a color cast. Then use the software to remove that color from the overall picture.

Adjusting color saturation
Increasing the saturation adds punch to the colors but can distort the true colors. Decreasing the saturation brings the colors closer to shades of gray, black, and white. (Decreasing color saturation all the way leaves you with a black-and-white picture.)

Many dull-looking pictures can benefit from increased saturation.

Sharpening a picture
Sharpen is a very useful feature for pictures that are slightly out of focus.

Note: Increasing the contrast can give an impression of increased sharpness, so try that first.

Note: Use Sharpen sparingly. Sharpening the picture too much can cause unpleasant patterns and grain to appear when the picture is enlarged. If the picture is very blurry to start with, you may not be able to fix it.