Photography editing tips :: diptychs

This month Jackie Rueda is challenging us to create diptychs for La vuelta al mundo. This something I absolutely love to do but I've notice a lot of you are struggling with it, so I though I could give some easy tips on creating dips.

There are great editing tools online, so you don't need to have Photoshop to do any of this. If you're not used to editing, the first thing I would advise you to do is play around with your images till you know what look you want, and what works or not. Put them side by side, on top of each other, cut them... Imagine you are scrapbooking. Remember, what we picture in our head doesn't always work visually, so it's worth playing a bit.

I find that an easy way to do this is use Powerpoint. Office aplications are something everyone is used to deal with, and as access to, but why Powerpoint? Well, this is an application that allows you to make compositions on screen, so you can easily move objects, resize them, cut them... I could as well recommend Publisher, but for what matters you can do just the same with Powerpoint, with the advantage of using a much more comfortable tool that you're used to. Once you've mastered it you can skip this and use photo editing tools, but, whenever possible, play with the composition first. It is very useful for you to visualize the end result quickly, and try different things, where photo editing tools will take you longer.

Tutorial 1 - for beginners

Diptychs with MS Powerpoint

If your diptychs are meant to display on web you can get away with making them on Powerpoint. Just be aware that you'll loose photo quality in this process. If you're new to this photo editing thing, this is a good way to start. (I am assuming you have some basic knowledge. Click the images to magnify them)

1. Open Powerpoint and create a new blank presentation.

2. Insert your pictures on a blank slide and start playing with them.

3. For some editing features, select the picture you want to edit and click the 'Format' tab to access all the features. You can crop them for some different compositions and you can also add some effects like lightning and color. Try them out to see what pleases you (I used 'sepia').

4. At this point you can also add text, by inserting a text box and placing it where you please. You can add a nice quote to complete your composition, or just your copywrite mark to protect your work.

5. Make sure your images are perfectly aligned and that the sizes are matching (if you cropped them). Use the align button on the 'Format' tab while having both images selected to align them.

6. When you're done, drag your composition and place it on the top left corner of the slide, then click the tab 'File' and 'save as', and save the current slide as a JPG.

7. Now your diptych is almost done, you just need to get rid of that white border from the powerpoint slide. Open your image with 'Paint' and remove the extra white by clicking in the bottom right corner of the image and drag (you can do this with any other image editing tool). Save it and your done. You created a diptych!

I suppose you can do just the same with OpenOffice, but I never used that, so I cannot tell. Feel free to ask any question if you need any kind of help. I'll b be back tomorrow with another Tutorial for diptychs with Pixlr and Photoshop.

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all photos by me