Look at the above picture, you may not believe that it is shot using a point-and-shoot camera from a tower (behind a thick glass window). You can produce such stunning quality images only if you know how to post-process the image using Adobe Photoshop CS. NOT. Now, a free tool from Google allows you to do the same thing in a jiffy. I will show you how you can improve your digital photos as well.

If you own a digital camera, then you know your pictures are not quite good and not upto the professional standards. Usually, your photos look like a washed out print, here is a tutorial to convert your ordinary photos into professional quality photo.

Now, look at this photo, this was shot using a simple point-and-shoot digital camera (just like the one you may have). This picture is taken from Sydney Tower behind the glass looking towards the ground.

We are going to use a free software called, Picasa to convert this ordinary, mundane photo into a stock-photo quality image in 60 seconds (or less if you are quick). Click on any image if you want to see larger.


Step 1: Apply Auto-Contrast
After selecting a photo, drag and drop it into Picasa. Use 'Auto Contrast' to do the first colour correction, it will preserve the colour and fixes the exposure.

Now your photo will look like this.


Step 2: Increase Saturation
Go to "Effects" tab --> and choose "Saturation" and slide the bar towards right. Look for a guide.


Now, your photo will become like this.


Step 3: Increase Shadows and Highlights
Select the "Tuning" tab and adjust "Highlights" by sliding bar towards one-quarter and "Shadows" to half. After adjusting, your tuning settings will be like this.


When you apply these settings, your photo will become like this.

Wow..do not celebrate yet.

Step 5: Apply sharpen
Use the "Effects" tab again to apply the default "Sharpen".


That's it. You have produced a stunning photo in 60 seconds using Picasa.


Few more tips:

1. Copy these effects to other photos:


Now, you can apply all these 4 effects into a next photo. Just go to "Edit" menu, "Copy All Effects" from this photo and select the photos (in the Library view) and use "Paste All Effects". Every photo will transform simultaneously. A word of caution, all the effects may not be apply to all photos. An outdoor photo may require a different adjustment compared to an indoor photo. So, play with the settings and produce aesthetic pictures.

If anyone says this is not a pure photography, do not care. Professional photographers use better quality lenses and filters to achieve these effects. We are doing it afterwards in a photo-editing software just like the good-old-photo-lab techniques.

When you are done, share a link with us to show us your photo :-)

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