Digital Photography Today

I was searching the Internet today and I found this great resource for Corel Paint Shop Pro. It’s on About.com and it has a lot of cool resources.

There are many sites that offer a lot of cool tutorials on just about any topic you think of. Whether you want to alter a photo, add a picture frame, or get into more difficult photo editing there is something for everyone. Another neat thing was they also list a lot of freebies. You can never have too many brush sets or picture tubes. I know I use them all the time!

I will be going through some thing s and listing more detailed information one by one, but in the meantime check out those links. You’ll be glad you did!

I do a lot of digital alercations to different photos and I have both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro to use. A lot of people will disagree with me here because Photoshophas a “bigger” name, but to be honest I think Paint Shop Pro is a better program. They are both very similar, but PSP I think is a lot more user friendly. It’s going to be the program to choose if your a beginner because it’s easier to learn.

Photoshop, is an excellent program, but I think it’s more for professional graphic artists than your every day average Joe. Learning both of them even though they are very similar, will give you the best options for all of your digital photography needs. I’ve found a lot of tutorials online and am going to start posting a tutorial of they day. That way you have the option to choose and have all of the tutorial links in once easy place to find! Do check back and in the meantime I want your opinion what’s better Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop?

 Kim Anderson is a master at what’s called selected color photos. I admire his work and have been a fan for a long time. Many of you will recognize his work. It is a very well known collection of photos of children, that are mostly in black and white, with some color added. You can Kim Anderson’s website by clicking the link. There you will be able to view more of his work. (all of the photos in this post are the works of Kim Anderson)

But how can you achieve this looks in your personal photos? This has been something I have been playing with for many years and now great digital photography software has made this so much easier. Here is a step by step article that I wrote to teach other people how to alter their photos. This is written using Corel’s Paint Shop Pro X2, which is my favorite graphics software. (I will be adding a Photoshop tutorial as well, but I’m still learning it!) Believe me this is a lot easier than the old fashioned way I used to do this. There was a time I would buy oils and pencils, print the photo in black & white, and “color” in the areas I wanted color! You have to love technology! Be creative with this and have fun! Turning your families photos into a work of art is a great feeling!

One of my favorite things about photography is black and white photos. Black and white photos can show much more detail and meaning than a normal color photograph. This image above is an image of bridge in Central Park, taken by Andrew Prokos.

I think it says a lot more in black and white than it would if it was done in color. For example, this picture, in color may look dreary. Where as in black and white it looks peaceful and serene. The snow looks beautiful and white, in color you would see those grey gunky parts. The buildings in the background may overtake the bridge if they were in color, however, in black and white the bridge is the focus of this picture. Mostly though this picture since it’s in black and white, you can feel the cold. The chilly wind on a winter day as you walk through Central Park in the winter. That is one of my favorite thigs about black and white photography. What do you think? Do you prefer black and white or color photos?

I have a love for photography. Digital editing, digital scrapbooking, altering, and enhancing photographs is a fun hobby. It also is a lot to learn. So I decided to start this blog to share things that I have learned step by step. I will also be linking great tutorials I have found so that you have one place to go to look for anything you may need.

There is no way I could ever say I know it all so linking to other informational pages and tutorials will allow you to learn things I have not yet mastered. That’s the thing about digital photography, you can never learn enough. Each day I will be discussing 1 or 2 different techniques so hopefully you will enjoy the learning process and discover a new creative you! Make sure you check back frequently for new updates!