Photography editing tips :: diptychs with Pixlr

Blogger has been acting crazy erasing my posts. Am I the only one having this? Crazy stuff... Let's see if it works this time.

I told you I was going to post another tutorial on making diptychs, so here I am! I named it Diptychs with Pixlr but you can as well do it on Photoshop, because the steps are pretty much the same.

If you're looking for a good (free) tool to edit your photos I would say Pixlr, also known as the cloud based Photoshop alternative, is the best you can find*. While not being a Photoshop, it looks really like it, and it works pretty much the same way, so if later you decide to 'upgrade' and became a Photoshop user you'll be feeling at home. In resume, I think it pays of start with a tool like this that gives you the bases to develop further. It also works the opposite way, in my case I'm a Photoshop user since college, but sometimes I need to process a photo to post when not being on my computer, so this was the best find for me. I could do everything in a run without the need to test the waters nor feeling lost looking for the tools. Honestly, I think that, for most web users, a graphic editor like this will be more than enough, plus: no need for spending absurd amounts of money, and no use of hacked software.

Tutorial 2

Diptychs with Pixlr
or Photoshop

You can do this tutorial with your own photos but, for an easier comprehension, I advise you to download pic 1 and pic 2 and follow my steps. It might look long but it is actually very easy. Feel free to ask any question, I will gladly try to help you.

1. Go to Pixlr.com and open the editor. Chose the option Open image from computer and chose one of the pictures you want to use in your diptych.

2. In the menu click File and Open Image and chose the second photo you want to add to your diptych. You will now have two pictures opened and ready to start working, as you can see from the image above, pic1 and pic 2.

3. We will make a horizontal diptych. For the two images to be perfectly aligned side by side they must have the exact same height. One image at a time, click on the window to select it, go to the menu Image and click Image size... Take note of the height of the image (grab paper and pencil and write it down, or just type it on a text document), and exit clicking Cancel. You don't want to change any definitions at this stage. Height of pic 1 is 1368px.

4. Repeat the previous step for the other image. Height of pic 2 is 1612px.

5. Comparing the numbers we can conclude that pic 2 is bigger on height, so we need to reduce the height of pic 2 to match the height of pic 1. Select pic 2, open the Image size box again on menu Image. Change the height to 1368 px. Make sure you have the Constrain proportions box selected. You'll notice the width value change automatically. Hit ok.

Note: you should always reduce the size of the bigger image, and not the opposite, increasing the size of an image will result in the lost of pixel quality. 

6. Now that both images are the same height size we can proceed to create the diptych. To do this we will increase the canvas of one of the images to fit them both. Select pic 2 and repeat step 3, this time take note of the image width: 1787 px.

7. Select pic 2, go to menu Image and click on Canvas size... You'll see pic 2 width is 1029 px. With a calculator, make the sum of the width values of both images: 1787 + 1029 = 2816 px. As I like to have a thin white separation line between pictures, we'll add extra 10 pixels to the width making it 2826 px. Change the width value (if you're working with Photoshop, make sure you use the drop-down on the right to make sure you're working in pixels). You notice underneath you have a grid of squares where you can read Anchor. This is where you define the place you want your original image to stay anchored. By default it will be selected the top left square (the middle, in Photoshop, change it to top left), that's the position where your original image will stay after you expand the canvas, meaning that, depending on the values you attribute to width and height, the canvas will grow to the right and/or to the bottom. Since we're not changing the height this will work for us. Click ok.

Note: To understand more about the canvas size feature I suggest you to open a random image and play with values and anchor positions. Also try to reduce the size to see how it will crop your image. 

8. Now you can see that pic 1 as enough blank space to the right to fit pic 2. On pic 2, go to menu Edit and click Select all.

Note: You can enlarge the window to see the whole image by dragging the bottom right corner and/or use you mouse wheel (or ctrl + - on your keyboard) to reduce the size of the visualization.


9. Go to menu Edit and Copy. Then, select pic 1, go to Edit and Paste.

10. Using the Move tool, the second of the right column on the Tools window, drag pic 2 to the right to properly fit you diptych. For more precision you can also use the keyboard arrows, but make sure you have the Move tool selected.

11. Your diptych is done! Now all you have to do is save your work. Go to File and Save it. Good job!

**
all photos by me


*hey, this is based on my experience, obviously!
No one is paying me to to say good things about this stuff!

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.

**

all photos by me