Picasa Tip: HDRish = Super Sharpen

Want a picture to really POP!  Try the HDRish effect.  You’ll find it on Picasa’s 4th tab of editing options.

Sharpen a Blurry Photo

At the risk of having professional photographers cringe at the thought, I use HDRish like a Super-Sharpen.  Real HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is done by taking multiple pictures of the same subject, using different exposures, and then layering them into one picture.  The results can be truly stunning – see examples by doing a Google search for HDR images.  Picasa’s HDRish feature emulates that process.  Just by playing around with it, I discovered that it makes dull, slightly blurry pictures look sharper.  It can’t make an out of focus picture in focus … nothing can do that other than re-shooting the photo … but it can accentuate the outlines of your subject, making them seem sharper.  Notice the text on the banner in the two pictures below.

Before clicking HDRish	After applying a small amount of HDRish
Too much HDRish	Adjust the amount with the sliders

Why not use Sharpen?

This is a long story, I used to love Sharpen and use it on all my pictures.  Then they (Google/Picasa) changed it.  They made it better – more accurate.  See my past article on What Happened to Sharpen?  But now, the Sharpen command doesn’t make enough difference in a picture for most of us to notice.  Especially when we’re just using small images posted on the web.  If you were to print an 11X14, then you would really notice what sharpen does, and you should use it.  For most of us, putting pictures in Blogs or Web Albums, we won’t see the difference.  If you want to see a distinctly sharper picture – try HDRish.  Just realize you may need to tone it down a bit by dragging the sliders to the left.

Create an Artistic Effect

This is the purpose of HDRish – it is to make a simple photograph look like a work of art, a painting.

Before HDRish

After HDRish

Post your Photos to our Facebook Page

Play with it and see what you come up with.  If you get some results you really like, we’d love to see it.  How about posting it on our Facebook page to share?  Just go to www.facebook.com/geeksontour .  At the top left, where it says ‘Write something …’  describe your photo, then click the Photo/Video button to upload it.  Do that twice if you want, once for the before picture, and once for the after.  You don’t need to be a Facebook member to visit Geeks on Tour’s page, but you do need to be a Facebook member before you can post something.  And, while you’re there – be sure to click the ‘Like’ button (at the top of the page) so you’ll see our posts on your Facebook Newsfeed!

Here’s another one:

Before HDRish

After HDRish

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.