Photography Tidbits

Here’s a story with a happy ending. Just before Christmas I got given a digital camera when I went to visit my aunt. It was really nice of her, because she had gone to the best camera store in town and they sold her quite an expensive Nikon D something or other. Anyway I took lots of pictures of the family — and I means lots - but most of them were pretty awful. Then someone suggested I get some photo editing software, so I scoured Google for about an hour until I found something really useful.

This is what I found: a site called Photo Software News that not only gives you news about all the latest stuff but also has a really big directory to photo editing software and hundreds of other photo-related products. This is great, because I can’t afford Adobe Photoshop, unless my folks lend me the money as “an investment.” Fortunately, there’re plenty of alternatives, more than I ever imagined. And guess what? A lot of them are free! I found a list on the same site to the top 50 free photo software programs — including several photo editors. It’s just what I wanted and I’ve already tried 3 of them with great results.

Some of the commercial software on PhotoSoftwareNews seems to be quite low-cost in comparison to the top photo editors. There’s all kinds of Film Simulation software for reproducing the look of film and another section for simulating art effects like watercolor painting. They’ve got plenty of Panorama Software for stitching images together. Personally I want to get a program from the Skin Tone section which has stuff for improving your portraits and body shots.

I’m thinking of taking up photography as a serious hobby and maybe earning a living from it eventually. But I ignored all the pro-level software they’ve got listed (because I can’t afford it) and instead concentrated on the programs for people who are just getting started in photography. They have got a section on Digital Scrapbooking, another on Digital Photo Albums, and another on Quick-Fix programs for people in a hurry. There’s even a special Beginners section which has also got the 50 top free list, which I strongly recommend if you’re on a zero budget.

One other thing: if you want to find your way around all the best photo sites, there’s a start page that seems to belong to the same pages, but it has its own web address at Photo Start Sheet. I can see why they’ve done this, because it has hundreds of links to other photo directories and even to general interest sites so you can make it your permanent home page. That is what I’ve done, so I’m now just a couple of clicks away from just about every photo site on the Internet. It saves a lot of time which I can spend on taking photos and on using my new photo editing software. It is all thanks to my dear kind Aunt Jessie.

To find my way around all the best photo sites on the web I had used PhotoStartSheet.