Photography+&+Photo+Editing

= Photo Editing Software = Emily Malone

Description and Uses of Technologymedia type="custom" key="11224080" align="right"
When it comes to editing or enhancing digital images, there are dozens of programs and mobile applications available to use. A digital photograph is made, either through digital photography or by scanning an image, and it is opened in editing software where it can be altered. There are hundreds of ways to use photo editing software, the most common being a way to touch up aspects of photographs such as adjusting focus to draw emphasis to a subject or changing color photos to black and white. As Holzberg (2003) points out, there are many more uses for photo editing software than, for example, removing blemishes or balancing light exposure. He writes that the software is useful because it combines a variety of ways to edit photos in addition to cropping them and getting rid of red-eye. There are other perks like special effects, layering, and art filtering, as well as organizing programs to keep photos from getting jumbled up with each other and being difficult to locate. Arguably the most famous, and surely one of the most established programs, is Adobe Photoshop by Adobe Systems, Inc. This software has a balance of the impressive touch-up and enhancement capabilities with simple organizational features that make it easy to save entire albums to CD or an external hard drive. A large selection of other programs exists as well, but as Goldsborough (2006) points out, even the top-of-the-line programs don't do absolutely everything there is to do when manipulating digital photographs. For this situation there exist several plug-ins, which are smaller pieces of software meant to supplement or enhance existing programs or apps.

Important Findings on Student Outcomes
Undoubtedly, photo editing programs have many creative uses in the K-12 classroom and beyond. Not only are they helpful in specialty classes like art, photography, and journalism, but they can be spread and used across the curriculum. Oswald (2008) reports on a teacher who received funding for a summer enrichment program and centered the project around photography. The teacher collaborated with other teachers across disciplines to create a dynamic experience working with images. She solicited help from the computer teacher to teach students how to work with Adobe Photoshop. The students learned how to work with digital images, even going so far as animating their creations. One sixth grader animated a man falling into a hole and spoke of the experience saying, "It was a taste of what real artists do with computers" (Oswald 2008).

Another summer opportunity to work with digital photography came to a high school student in 2008. The camp taught its attendees how to work with a Canon digital camera and how to manipulate the images using Adobe Photoshop and its daughter program, Elements. The students learned image-adjusting techniques like color correction and art effects like burning (Sarmiento 2008). It is important to help maintain a creative focus in the classroom as well because without it, students become bored and uninterested in learning. Herbert (2010) observed, "Science and social studies classrooms are rich in visual imagery; yet, many of these images are from the textbook or videos provided to the student by the teacher" (151). It would be more enriching for students to capture their own images and work with them through programs like Adobe Photoshop or Windows Movie Maker.

It is easy to assume that the latest generation of students are all digital natives and that being so means they can accomplish any kind of technological task without issues or questions. Though young people are often proficient at most technology, it does not mean they are proficient at everything. A young adult reference librarian from Niles, Illinois has determined, "A teen's comfort with photo editing, for instance, seems to depend on several factors like whether they have a computer with editing software at home, and whether or not it's taught in their school" (Block, 2011). Students tend to be interested in photo editing and can become frustrated when they're not given the opportunity to explore it in school. Teachers must be more creative in finding ways to integrate this technology. As Doyle (2003) describes this integration as easy and names several avenues. Students working on the school yearbook or newspaper will most definitely need instruction on photo editing. Documenting student projects or processes in a classroom could be made better by utilizing photography and photo editing, especially when used collaboratively. Doyle also suggests using photography to document student performances in a class or even use it as an assessment tool when building a student portfolio.

Emerging Trends and Open Issues
The first thing that comes to teachers' and administrators' minds when a new technology is mentioned is the budget. Public schools have limited resources when it comes to funding which makes for a large roadblock in obtaining and utilizing a technology like photo editing programs. One thing that holds true is that schools at least have working computers, even if only one per classroom. Those computers, even if they lack programs like Adobe Photoshop, can be utilized as photo-editing stations without having to spend money. There are dozens of choices for free programs that only require an internet connection to acquire. Block (2011) lists several of these including Paint.NET (available at http://getpaint.net) and GIMP (available at www.gimp.org). These and other free resources can be downloaded and used on as many computers that a school might have, with no worry about the limited number of installs that purchased programs come with. Even better than free downloads, which often require permission or help from district IT employees, are free online tools. These run entirely on the web and facilitate easy sharing. They include Aviary's Phoenix (available at www.aviary.com), and FotoFlexer (available at http://fotoflexer.com). Students would not have to worry about having to work on only one computer where photos and projects are saved; everything is "in the cloud" with these online tools, accessible from anywhere, at any time.

With online tools come the inevitable community of sharing ideas and projects. Because Facebook is often blocked by school district policies, other sites and programs have surfaced to facilitate collaboration among students and their photography work. A common source for this is the very site this text is published with: wikispaces.com. A high school teacher from Hoover, Alabama has utilized this space for several years, citing the wiki found here as "the backbone" of his photography class (Myers 2009, p. 37). It is a comprehensive site that allows him and his students to share current activities, reflections and comments on others' works, as well as links to external sources and video tutorials or screenshots of Photoshop techniques. Sites like this also make sharing work with parents easy for students. As with most technologies, discovering the full potential of using photography and photo editing in the classroom is slow going. Creativity and a willingness to experiment are what will aid the development of utilizing this technology in kindergarten through twelfth-grade classrooms. Luckily, almost all software comes with a help function and the advice and ideas shared in online community pages and forums are available any time.