It's not like they are professional photos!
June 9, 2010 11:43 AM Subscribe
Best way to auto-correct photo album - instead of doing it 1 by 1
Any sugg. about taking an entire photo album & having it auto correct any pics such as contrast, color, red-eye... instead of doing it 1 by 1. Just the basics even.
Eventually would upload photos to a site like Snapfish to have them printed.
Preferably for mac.
Thank you so much!!
Any sugg. about taking an entire photo album & having it auto correct any pics such as contrast, color, red-eye... instead of doing it 1 by 1. Just the basics even.
Eventually would upload photos to a site like Snapfish to have them printed.
Preferably for mac.
Thank you so much!!
I don't think this is impossible at all; Lightroom can be configured to auto-correct tones and white balance. I presume you can do this on iPhoto as well--check the online help. I don't think you can auto-correct red eye; it's done with a spot desaturation, and you can't apply it globally (well you can, but you lose your reds). I think iPhoto has face recognition, so maybe it can do this, but I've not seen it.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:06 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:06 PM on June 9, 2010
You could correct contrast and color using Photoshop's batch process with auto-level and auto-color. You do it once, save the process as a batch, and apply it to a folder. I'm not sure this would work for red-eye, as it needs to be applied more specifically.
posted by ddaavviidd at 12:07 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by ddaavviidd at 12:07 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Ah, I just noticed your post title...best to give it a try and see what works best for you. My Photoshop students used to do this, and while it made them very comfortable to know that they were letting expensive software auto-correct their work, the results were uniformly bland and in many cases worse than the original (especially working with contrast).
But since you're not taking a class and aren't attempting to be professional...doesn't hurt to try.
posted by circular at 12:18 PM on June 9, 2010
But since you're not taking a class and aren't attempting to be professional...doesn't hurt to try.
posted by circular at 12:18 PM on June 9, 2010
Regardless of the software you use, whether it's Lightroom, Photoshop, or whatever, its capabilities for automatic correction will be largely dependent on the specific photos it "corrects" and their defects.
Odds are that in a batch process with auto correction(s) applied, you may end up improving the majority of the pictures to some degree, but on the other hand you''ll also cause some to actually be worse than the uncorrected originals.
Speaking as someone who optimizes at least 12000 images a year and has done so for over 10 years, if the auto correction features of even the high end software applications were a magic bullet, I'd be using them. I don't.
posted by imjustsaying at 12:37 PM on June 9, 2010
Odds are that in a batch process with auto correction(s) applied, you may end up improving the majority of the pictures to some degree, but on the other hand you''ll also cause some to actually be worse than the uncorrected originals.
Speaking as someone who optimizes at least 12000 images a year and has done so for over 10 years, if the auto correction features of even the high end software applications were a magic bullet, I'd be using them. I don't.
posted by imjustsaying at 12:37 PM on June 9, 2010
Concurring with what "imjustsaying" wrote.
posted by StrawberryPie at 2:00 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by StrawberryPie at 2:00 PM on June 9, 2010
Maybe use some sort of macro program to do it one-by-one for you in Picasa?
posted by tsh at 2:11 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by tsh at 2:11 PM on June 9, 2010
Batch processing functionality exists in many applications... Lightroom does some of this, Aperture, iPhoto to a lesser extent. There are also third-party plugins and apps that specialize in batch red eye reduction or color correction. You mileage will definitely vary from photo to photo.
I wouldn't recommend batch processing because of this. But since you have a lot of pictures you want to get good prints of as quickly as possible I suggest the following:
1. Open Lightroom, Aperture or iPhoto (this should work in iPhoto, it definitely works in the other two)
2. Create "smart" container. Also known as a Smart Album, Smart Filer, etc. Essentially it's an automated search folder that looks for folders with attributes that you tell it to look for.
3. Tell the smart folder to look for all photos in which the flash was fired. Assuming your photos still have the EXIF data embedded (most digital cameras do this nowadays), this will be very easy. The folder will only display pictures in which you used the flash, which are the only pictures that would have red eye in them.
4. Now go and correct all the red eye. Yes, it's tedious. There might be an "automagic" that you can try first, but you'll tend to get better results with doing this manually. Shouldn't tak you more than ten seconds per photo, so that's pretty quick.
Now the next thing you probably want to do is color correct. The easiest way to do this is just use the auto button in your editor of choice from the three I mentioned. Not sure if iPhoto can do this in a batch, but Automator may be able to help you with that. If you haven't used Automator on your mac before, this would be a fun project to learn with. It's pretty easy.
If you want really powerful batch editing with color correct and stuff, check out OnOne, but be warned, it's not cheap.
Picasa (free from Google) has some simple batch editing like auto color, "warmify" stuff like that.
Also you should know that a lot of photo labs do their own color correction before printing UNLESS you ask them not to. So it might be easier to to jest let them do it because your prints will come out nice enough and the only thing you'll have to worry about is red-eye.
*Bonus Unsolicited Advice: Want to reduce red eye in your pictures in the future? Don't use the flash. Too dark to use without flash? Save up your money and get a cheap DSLR or an advanced point'n'shoot like a Lumix LX3 or a Canon S90 or G11.
posted by jnrussell at 2:14 PM on June 9, 2010
I wouldn't recommend batch processing because of this. But since you have a lot of pictures you want to get good prints of as quickly as possible I suggest the following:
1. Open Lightroom, Aperture or iPhoto (this should work in iPhoto, it definitely works in the other two)
2. Create "smart" container. Also known as a Smart Album, Smart Filer, etc. Essentially it's an automated search folder that looks for folders with attributes that you tell it to look for.
3. Tell the smart folder to look for all photos in which the flash was fired. Assuming your photos still have the EXIF data embedded (most digital cameras do this nowadays), this will be very easy. The folder will only display pictures in which you used the flash, which are the only pictures that would have red eye in them.
4. Now go and correct all the red eye. Yes, it's tedious. There might be an "automagic" that you can try first, but you'll tend to get better results with doing this manually. Shouldn't tak you more than ten seconds per photo, so that's pretty quick.
Now the next thing you probably want to do is color correct. The easiest way to do this is just use the auto button in your editor of choice from the three I mentioned. Not sure if iPhoto can do this in a batch, but Automator may be able to help you with that. If you haven't used Automator on your mac before, this would be a fun project to learn with. It's pretty easy.
If you want really powerful batch editing with color correct and stuff, check out OnOne, but be warned, it's not cheap.
Picasa (free from Google) has some simple batch editing like auto color, "warmify" stuff like that.
Also you should know that a lot of photo labs do their own color correction before printing UNLESS you ask them not to. So it might be easier to to jest let them do it because your prints will come out nice enough and the only thing you'll have to worry about is red-eye.
*Bonus Unsolicited Advice: Want to reduce red eye in your pictures in the future? Don't use the flash. Too dark to use without flash? Save up your money and get a cheap DSLR or an advanced point'n'shoot like a Lumix LX3 or a Canon S90 or G11.
posted by jnrussell at 2:14 PM on June 9, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by circular at 11:52 AM on June 9, 2010