Photo and Pictures

Gimp 2.6.9 is merely a bug-release and we are still waiting for the one window version 2.7 that is slowly coming. Then also GEGL will be more of a motor. Now it seems Gimp is having two motors and GEGL is more like another filter that is able to do some edits.

I think C2G is a wonderful tool that really adds to the picture though as well as mono-mixer it still feel like another filter and not an addition to the motor. I hope that the new version is different both to the graphic interface and the motor that drives it making it easier to do edits.

I think that Gimp still is ahead as the most powerful editor that you can get for free. Gimp has given at least me so much letting me be able to spend my money on hardware instead of software.

Being an amateur taking pictures 8-bit is more than enough and being 16-bit is merely an argument people make because they spent alot of money on their software. What i do wait for is adjusting layers so you can use same adjustment on different pictures. Now you do alot of same things over and over.

So what i want of a new Gimp is only adjustment layers so i can do same adjustment over and over again. Maybe some new graphical interface that make it easier to work. Even so i am very satisfied with how well this free software work and together with G’mic it is doing very well.

Read more: Gimpusers, My gimp page

Local enhancement is a simplier name on sharpening your picture with a large radius. I use 30-50 points as a size when sharpening. I usually use a radius that is quite small when i sharpen my picture but here you use a very large radius thus will effect the contrast in the picture. I have played around some although effecting the haze.

I wanted some halo-effects on the picture and thus i wanted it to control the picture with strong contrast. If you take your time and play around with unsharp mask you can have some strange effects. It is vital that you know of local contrast since it is a useful tool.

Remember you also can do USM only on the light layer in LAB mode to have a sharper image that will not effect the coulor of the photo. Doing unsharp mask will effect the image in different ways making it somewhat darker and this you should know of.

Read more: Luminious Landscape

I have been using Xnview, which is a viewer software on most platforms. As one of its features is that it takes also Raw. Xnview is free to use even though it is not open source. I have been shooting in Raw and put the setting to Monotone. Thus still having the information in colour but seeing the result in B/W. This is a common trick to fool the camera thinking you are shooting in B/W while still having the information in colour.

It is working with my camera that is an Olympus E-PL1 and taking in the Raw file so it is also bound to take your new camera. Be sure to check it out that your camera is avaible first.

You need a software program after you shot to convert it to BW. I have used Xnview to turn the Raw-file to jpg then i used monomixer in Gimp to turn the photo to BW. Shooting this way you still got the information of colour but you see the result in camera as BW. Do you have questions please comment.

This knowledge is a good tool while you are learning which photo is suitable for BW because you will see the result directly and you are able to make a color photo if you like.

You can use saturation to make your photo stand out from the rest. Be careful though since it easy to pull to much in your saturation and making the photograph unnatural.

Having more colour it fools the eye to notice it more. Don´t forget to add some sharpness to the picture. This will also making it slightly darker.

It is something that will make your photograph go from ordinary and lift them up to be better. Photo editing shall be so it improve your photography applied careful it adds to your photograph. Remember though to work on your photo skill. Since bad in means bad out.

Yesterday I saw that someone suggesting Ipernity to Wii interface. I think this would be very cool. Wii got also a sdcard reader and i need it to start reading my E-PL1 camera to. In the meantime i think it probably read the old Canon Powershot.

It is important to be able to recreate your good photo. Try to take the same picture twice. It is also good for your learning process. Finding your style.

It is important to be so good on exposure, ISO and shutter speed to know your photo is not just some accident or purely luck. You will learn much by the process. Simply relying on luck you can hire a baboon taking your pictures. The editing is getting that good these days.

Try to learn your tools as good as you can. Know your camera and its lenses. You also have to know how to photo edit and make the most out of your pictures.

Picasa 3 program replaces Lightroom because they do jpg of your rawbilder. Your photos are automatically entered into the Web service you prefer. Picasa makes itself felt for many beginners. Picasa is available as two separate products like an application and also the web service. You can read more about Picasa on their blog.

I’ve just started a Community on the web and you can be as active or how little you want active. It already have 232 members. You decide and if you want to share with grandma, or just to have it as backup. You can share your PDF, JPG or Word format, etc.. I can imagine that it can handle the most common rawformat, but there’s nothing I’ve tried. You can share the most part it is just to try. Free version is limited to 1000 pieces files and 200 megabytes per month so you can not share such large files. Starting with the Pro account, you can share your original files and also have infinite space per month.

Picasa program will also spread a lot of files, as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom does. It will become increasingly common that you support a specific software. We’ll see what Windows 7 has to offer because we can see that Microsoft has made concessions to the operating system and is no longer sealed to the use of the Internet Explorer as browser. You can not just pick any image for free. Check here if you want images for free !
What I said about Facebook is true and the same applies to Google. You can read their rights here . Learn what your rights are. You have special rights with Picasa. You decide if you accept it, but know at least what you accept. The same applies to Facebook, where you now may accept Facebook to use your pictures in ads.

If you want to be rights owner, use Ipernity . You can share anything. PDF, PDS, (photoshop) Word- or Mp3 files you decide on what basis you want to share and with whom. It has definitely improved conditions. You can if you are Pro users will also tell you share unlimited. Even as free you can share your Exif, which is how you took the picture. What you used to shutter speed or what camera you used.

Picasa Web service allows you to upload images, but you will be locked to Google, which owns Picasa. You will also be locked to Picasa if you use Blogger , which use their services and ways to insert pictures. All photos you add to Blogger is automatically added to Picasa Web Service and then lock your images in Google that may be their rights to your images.

Google supports open source , but it is only on the surface. Blogger is not open source, but one of their products. Picasa 3 itself is not open. Google controls everything. ‘Do not be evil “does not mean ‘Do not be Greedy’ something to think about. Something to think that Google owns you. You have no chance against the big.

You can read more of the Picasa software, but remember that you are using Google as your own the pictures. You can read about your rights. You know what you are getting into: a slideshow . Think about it and always read the terms of the service. You might as well get your own domain and take rights over your own images.

Always try out if your photo will do as black/white. It is not so hard since you can always test it with desaturate when you are editing.

When you are shooting Raw you can see the picture as black/white and having the full information of color. It will be easier learning to see what really works as black/white when you actually can see the picture in the LCD.

I had a conversation about one of my picture about mirroring your photo when you are photo editing. Now and then you get stuck on photo editing and then simply by mirroring the image or turn it black/white you might find new inspiration. I hope that this might be common among photographers.

Here i have turned the image around and showing both mirror-side at the same time. It might feel odd first but you actually get a new perspective on things. Be sure not to have anything in the picture that may give referens. Writings will be turned around and may look odd. So signs in the picture is a no no.

Nature photography is definitely working. You have to try yourself and you will get experience in time.

In order to develop your photo so it is important that you also develop your photo editing. The image here has a slight draw to blue because the camera’s white balance setting was awkward, but I photographed Raw format and knew I could change it in my image editing program. It is equally important to strengthen your photo with good photo editing. I do not mean that you are going to nest in front of your computer, but that just as the great masters were hugely skilled in the darkroom as you develop your skills in photo editing to bring your images to exceptionally good photos.

Here you see the picture when I was lifting it with photo editing. I have adjusted the hue and changed the contrast of the image. I am using layer masks to highlight the contrast to emphasize the feeling of frost. In addition, I sharpened the image using high pass and also the restricted to highlight the difference between the sharp frost and the soft toned background.

Brian Auer had a project some time ago on his blog where he let his readers edit an unedited photo and send in their version. You can see how different we look at the pictures and make sure you will find that although the initial situation is the same as different people can edit up completely different images. I think just like Brian that it is 50% and 50% photo editing to create a really good picture.

It is obviously that of photographic techniques to create lots of effects that can be done with photo editing, and vice versa. It is not the point. It is the feeling that you lift up the scene and what you get the audience to experience with your picture that is important. Today’s digital photography has his darkroom in the photo editing program and it is important to you as a photographer to master it.

If you want to take the best pictures so my advice to you that you will devote as much time to develop your photo editing and not just your photography. I see many images that are mediocre, and most of the photographers have missed learning to lift their images with good image editing. You should not sit in front of your computer and edit like hell know that you can never make a bad image to an exceptional. Maybe you can save it to be okay, but never a top image.

There are lots of rules and ways of thinking when you compose your photos. The golden ratio is deeply rooted in our culture and is found again and again in nature such as in the Nautilus shell . Our minds quickly captures the very harmony of proportions.

There are tools on the Internet where you can get help to crop your pictures so that you get a better harmony in your photos. Composition adjuster gives you the ability to easily add on help lines, so you can quickly and easily crop your images to get the right symmetry. It works better if you use Internet Explorer as your browser.

In Gimp you can also add some lines on cropping and selection tool such as the heart, the Rule of Thirds and Golden Ratio. It is a great tool to crop the images so that you control the audience into what is interesting in the picture. this is something you can apply to photoshop as well.

Photos that lifts from the rest is far too often that is using elements with derived proportional to the golden ratio. In the picture with the snail and the ant, it is the golden triangles that create a lovely picture. Ant on the shell also shows that it is not only about composition to get a picture to lift. I like images where there is symbolism and thought behind. You have to depart from the rules of sense.

The same applies to this shell where we can clearly see how the spiral from the first plant to stop the blade in the foreground. The challenge is to recover an eye for how to get a good composition that caresses the eye.

The Cat at dawm, I simply have instead gone from golden ratio to some extent, but used the template to place the cat. The cat I placed beneath the lines of the golden ratio, which creates a small asymmetry. You can also see that the lines go through the lots where the background varies in color. This is a counterbalance to create a little harmony in the background of the picture.

Equally important to learn the rules, it is to find openings that are just your style to break the rules. To create your own style requires you to stand out from what is cliché.

Learn More: About thirds rule and the Golden Ratio, Golden Rectangle on Flickr