PhotoScape

Creating and Manipulating Images Using PhotoScape

There are plenty of image manipulation tools but if you are going to create a website, you have to use the one which is efficient. PhotoScape is a good tool because it is feasible for beginners and advanced users alike.

On PhotoScape’s main screen, you will see the many features it has that you can use for creating web content as follows:

Viewer - as the name implies, is a picture viewer with features the same with most image viewers like changing image orientation.

Editor - alters the appearance of a single image

Batch Editor - alters the appearance of multiple images

Page - arranges several photos to create a single one; similar to a mosaic

Combine - links several images together to form a bigger image

Animated GIF - allows you to create an animated GIF from several pictures

Print - readies picture for printing

Splitter - divides a single photo into multiple parts

Screen Capture - captures the screen and saves it

Color Picker - grabs a pixel from your screen to be used in editing

Raw Converter - converts RAW images (uncompressed images usually from digital camera) to JPEG

Rename - allows you to rename a batch of photos

Paper Print - useful tool for printing your own calendars, sheets, lined paper, graph paper, etc.

For this lesson, we will only focus on the ones that we can use for our future website project: the Editor and Batch Edit

Editor Edit

1. Open PhotoScape then choose editor.
2. Choose the folder where the image you want to manipulate is located using the file explorer on the upper left.
3. Once you have selected the folder, you will see a preview of all images found on that folder at the bottom of the file explorer.
4. From the preview, select the image you want to use. The image now be shown on a much bigger preview inside your work area similar to what is shown below.
5. Notice the properties of the image like the file name, the image size (in pixels), and the file size found on the bottom of the preview.

     6. Manipulate the image using the tools on the bottom.

Home Tab – this is where you can add a frame, resize, sharpen, and add filters and effects to your image



Objects Tab – this is where you can place a wide variety images like texts, shapes, and symbols





Crop – this is where the various tools can be found in order to properly crop an image to desirable size



Tools – includes other tools like red eye correction, mole removal, mosaic effect, and brush tools. For more information about the tool, simply click it and a tip will be displayed describing how to use it.







7. Click SAVE located on the lower right of the program. The SAVE AS dialog box will appear. Save it in your activities folder with the file name editorexer.jpg. Check the file size and see how much space you save.

Batch Edit

            Batch editing is one of the most useful tools when trying to easily manipulate all image at the same time. This is most useful when you create a gallery of photos for a website. You can make their sizes uniform to what you have specified. For this exercise, you will need to take at least ten pictures and save in your desired folder. It is highly recommended that your photos share the same orientation (portrait or landscape)

1. Select the folder where your photos are located, then on the Preview window, drag the photos you want to be part of the batch edit to the work area (center).
2. Use the tool on the right to edit your photo. This is similar to the options in edit except the Crop and Tools tab which are replays by the Filters tab. The Filters tab is used to add a certain filter that will apply to all your photos.
3. Resize the pictures so that they do not exceed 800 pixels in width. Add filters if you want. 
4. Click on Convert All button found on the upper right.
   
5. The Save dialog box will appear that will allow you to change the location, the name of the images, and the file type. Since we are working on photographs, we are going to keep it as JPEG. For this exercise, save the batch images in a new folder labeled as “batch” inside your resource folder.