Thinking About Photography

Two weeks from today, Susan and I will be Yosemite for four days. It is my first time there in over 30 years. I have been there many times in my life, but never tire of its incredible beauty. Since it is Spring and we will be there in early May, the many waterfalls in the park will be running at full capacity and the wildflowers will be blooming.

No wonder I am thinking about photography. In fact on Saturday morning, Susan and I are signed up for a Photography Walk in the valley with an expert photographer. Then, we will have the rest of the day to explore the valley with our three cameras.

Yes, I said three. Susan is bringing her Olympus point-and-shoot while I am bringing both my Olympus Digital SLR with two lenses and my brand new Nikon digital D200 camera with two lenses. The D200 is a professional DSLR camera with a price tag to match. But it is quite a camera, to say the very least. I am looking at really giving it a workout plus learning more about its little idiosychrosies. I have this dream of doing a great photo of something like Yosemite Falls and printing it out on a 24x36 canvas.

So my head is definitely into photography these days. So I thought I would share some of the information I have run across that you might find of interest over the next couple of blogs.

As most of you know, I use Photoshop CS2 for my photographic and digital painting work. I also use several different "plug-ins" from several companies that work inside of Photoshop. But, of course, Photoshop is a very expensive program, running over $500 for a new version.

If you want to have most of the power of Photoshop for a lot less money, you can purchase Photoshop Elements, Ver. 4. It is real close in power and performance of the full version and you can still use plug-ins (there are even some good free plugins available). Photoshop Elements costs about $75.

But, of course, free is always better, especially if you can find a good piece of software. I found a list of high quality free software for your photo and graphic needs on download.com today and thought I would pass it along. If you want to do some digital enhancements of your photographs, you might look at "Irfanview", "PhotoPlus, " and "XNView." I have heard good things about all three.

For organizing your software, take a look at "Picasa." It is a good one. And again, all of these are free. Why not try them all and see which you like best.

Good shooting, everybody!