Choose Best Photo Editing Software

If you're serious about photography, and if you're looking for the best and most powerful photo editing program around, the de facto standard and market leader is Adobe Photoshop.

Unfortunately, with it's steep learning curve and equally steep price tag, Photoshop is overkill for the people who just want to play with their pictures. Photoshop has every possible feature that a digital photographer could want except a low price. What other programs are available?

Adobe recognized that their flagship product was a bit much for the beginner, so they scaled it back. With a few of the more complex features removed and a price tag under $100, Photoshop Elements still packs quite a punch, and might be considered the market leader in it's own price range. It has the same basic interface as the full powered Photoshop, and most of the same functionality.

Elements' leading competition is Corel's Paint Shop Pro XI, and some reviewers prefer Corel's product to Adobe's. Paint Shop Pro, in general, is easier to learn in many areas, and is just as powerful in most of it's tools.

Both Elements and Paint Shop Pro have red eye removal features and bundled photo organizer programs, and quite literally run neck and neck in terms of features and ease of use.

Another product on the market is the Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite. With the latest version, Microsoft has added wizards to help novice users work their way through the program. While the new features are an improvement, most reviewers still don't rank this product as highly as either Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. One feature that really stands out in Microsoft's package, though, is the slide-show program called Photo Story, which is much better than the equivalent in Elements. Photo Story is offered separately as a free download.

Top Landscape Photography Accessories

There is a lot of photography accessories on the market today, some are very useful, but most of them are a waste of money. Here are five of the most important accessories for landscape photography.

Tripod

A tripod is important for one main reason, keeping your images sharp. You’ll want to select a small aperture to maximize depth-of-field, so you should be using a shutter speed of less than 1/60 second. It’s impossible to get a sharp image holding your camera in your hand at these slow speeds.

When choosing a tripod pick one made out of carbon fibers, these are light to carry but are sturdy in the ground. Choose a tripod that the legs will spread out far, this will help to optimize the strength of your support.

Filters

A small selection of filters is well worth packing when heading off for a trip. They don’t take up too much space and will definitely add a bit of spice to your images. A polarizing filter should be top of the list, while a few Neutral Density filters will certainly help with tough exposures.  A 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 will help with exposure without affecting colour.

Bring a few warm-up filters to help when the light is cool. The 81-series are the best choice, which will give your images an extra bit of life. There’s a large amount of filters on the market today; these are the most important filters for landscape photography.

Correct Film

Fuji Velvia is an obvious choice for me when it comes to shooting landscapes. This is a slide film that is high in saturation and is perfect for capturing the colour of all seasons.  It comes in two speeds of ISO 50 and ISO 100.

It’s always handy to have a few rolls of Black and White film in the bag. You never know when you see a scene and know that it’s perfect for B/W.  Whichever film you choose, bring plenty of rolls; don’t be caught in the middle of nowhere without film.

If you are shooting with a Digital SLR bring plenty of memory.

Cable Release

If your camera has a connection for a cable release you should buy one. It is a perfect accessory to minimize the risk of camera shake - especially if you are taking long exposures. It doesn’t take up too much room and is extremely light.

Light Meter

All modern day cameras have light meters built into them, but if you are serious about landscape photography it’s advisable to have a hand-held light meter. These are small and of light-weight, and when used correctly are extremely accurate.

These are the most important bits and pieces for your camera bag; other important accessories include spare batteries,  a grey card and a few spare lenses.

Choosing Your Digital Camera Printer

Choosing a digital camera printed can be so difficult and confusing, because there are so many types of digital camera printer. I just want to share a few main points you should consider when choosing a digital camera printer that will help make the printing process a little easier.

It isn’t necessary to have a high-resolution digital camera printer to make great pictures. The higher the printer resolution you use, the more pixels you'll need in your original image file to produce a decent size print with your digital camera printer. The actual file size (in pixels) of the image from your camera, divided by the printer resolution (in dots per inch), determines the final print size. So, if the image file size is 1,478 x 1,280 pixels, and you print the file at 163 dpi with your digital camera printer, the final print size will be 9 x 7.8 inches.

If your digital camera printer resolution is 300 dpi, then you will have a higher resolution with more dots per inch laid down on the paper but a smaller print size. It is therefore important to ensure that you have the image file size to support the resolution of your digital camera printer.

The price of a digital camera printer is lowering while the quality is increasing. If you choose the right digital camera printer you can have your own photo lab, greeting card designing and sign making department with just your digital camera, some software and a printer.

The aim of having a digital camera printer is to produce photographic prints that look as close to real photographic prints as possible. This type of digital camera printer was once very expensive to buy and run, but technological advancements and competitive pricing have made them much more accessible to the average buyer. Ink-jet printers are now available that can produce excellent prints and a near photo-quality printer is much easier to find for people with a small budget. You will probably want to have a digital camera printer with a scanning feature built-in. If you want to produce same-size scans of photos you don’t need scan resolutions higher than 300 samples per inch for the scanner.

Your digital camera printer should also have the same interface that you already have on your computer. So if you have USB, then get a digital camera printer with USB, a Firewire printer if you have firewire or a SCSI printer if you have SCSI. There should be no need to buy a digital camera printer that requires a different interface to the one you already have on your computer or it will cost you more to upgrade if necessary.

Tips For Self Mastering Digital Photography

Digital photography can be difficult for some people. The most difficult thing that usually happen is “red eye” syndrome. I have five tips to improve your skills to mastering digital photography, even if you are using cell phone. Follow these tips and keep practicing.

Compose Carefully

Composition is one of the most basic digital photography you should consider. Pay attention to what is in the frame of the viewfinder. Fill the frame with nothing but blue sky, for instance, behind a single subject throws off the proportions of the photo and decreases interest.

Turning the camera sideways to see if a vertical photo might have more impact than a horizontal shot of the same subject.

You can also try positioning your subject off to the side, rather than in the center of the photograph.

Take Great Close up Photos

Your digital camera has a “macro mode” – think of it as a super magnifying glass. An extreme close up of something like flower petals can bring out textures that you never knew existed, and will add excitement to your photos. Play with this feature, you will find dozens of ways to use it to enhance your pictures.

Buy a Tripod

Digital cameras are prone to blurry photographs if your hands shake even a little bit. Several companies manufacture light, portable, inexpensive versions. Digital photography tips like this can save you hours of frustration and preserve otherwise perfect shots.

Get Active

Take your shot from the top of a teeter-totter, off the side of the boat, or standing on your head. Thinking outside the box can really pay off in unexpected ways. You will truly get once in a lifetime shots by adding a bit of creativity to your thinking.

Take a Photography Class

Are you still hungry for digital photography tips? There’s nothing like practice to improve your photography – except practice plus experience gained by learning from a pro. You can find photography classes online, at your local recreation centers, and community colleges.

Becoming an expert at digital photography takes time, you won’t become a professional photographer in your first week. Just keep trying new methods each time you use your camera, and before long, your friends and family will be admiring your newfound skills.

Cloning Digital Photograph

In digital photography, the cloning tool is used to copy one part of the image into another area, or even into another picture entirely. If your beautiful picture of clouds at sunset is ruined by the ugly electrical wires running across them, it can be fixed. The wires can be painted right out of the picture by using the cloning tool to copy small bits of the clouds around the wires over top of them.

This technique can be time-consuming, especially if there is a large area that needs work. It is also very easy to do it badly, with results that clearly look like they were cloned. Remember to click on different areas of the picture to be the source of the cloning tool, because if you don't, you can easily get a tell-tale pattern in the texture of the image.

Cloning is also useful in other ways. Imagine two pictures of the same family portrait. In the first, Grandpa is yawning. The photographer saw that, and shot a second one, but he didn't notice Junior sticking his tongue at his sister in the second shot. Rather than throw away both pictures, the photo editor can take the smiling Junior from the first image, and clone it over the ugly one in the second photo.

Cloning is one of the most common tools used in photo faking, just as the family portrait example shows. One recent example is Lebanese photographer Adnan Hajj, who was fired by Reuters. He was caught using a cloning technique on his pictures, making battle damage in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict look much worse than it really was.