Novice beach photo

[kryten22uk]

I'm not a photographer, but I was out with the kids at the beach and took this photo mainly by accident; what do you think? I thought it looks quite arty?

[sstein]

I like it

-

Stuart

[kryten22uk]

Sort of romantic I suppose

[fluffnik]

Have you tried messing with levels and curves to get a bit more detail into the shadows and highlights?

Lots of potential there...

[kryten22uk]

nope. I have no software, only the free stuff on XP. I think it just makes the picture darker or lighter.

[fluffnik]

kryten22uk said:

nope. I have no software, only the free stuff on XP. I think it just makes the picture darker or lighter.

You should grab The Gimp, it's free and powerful, if a little awkward to use sometimes.

Half the fun of digital photography is tweaking things in the digital darkroom - much less smelly than the old sort.

[kryten22uk]

fluffnik said:

You should grab The Gimp, it's free and powerful, if a little awkward to use sometimes.

Half the fun of digital photography is tweaking things in the digital darkroom - much less smelly than the old sort.

The only thing I tweak in a dark room is the missus! ...............

[fluffnik]

kryten22uk said:

[Adz The Rat]

Thats a fantatstic picture!!!!!!

Ive just downloaded that Gimp program, is it easy to use??

[sstein]

I think the GIMP is awful, it's unintuitive, uses a multi-window interface style that I thought died out with windows 98.

Photoshop is so much better!

-

Stuart

[Fetchez la vache]

sstein said:

I think the GIMP is awful, it's unintuitive, uses a multi-window interface style that I thought died out with windows 98.

Photoshop is so much better!

-

Stuart

There's a free add-on to the free GIMP which mimics the look and feel of PS so PS users feel at home with it.. theres a link in the free stickies thread.. cant remember the name...gimpshop, or photogimp... back in a sec..

ETA - http://www.gimpshop.com/ - found it in the computers & stuff stickie tread. worth a look for some good links to free photo-related software
HTH

Edited by Fetchez la vache on Wednesday 31st October 22:55

[twister]

sstein said:

I think the GIMP is awful, it's unintuitive, uses a multi-window interface style that I thought died out with windows 98.

Photoshop is so much better!

GIMP has a bit of a learning curve if you haven't previously been exposed to that style of UI, and it still has a few rough edges here and there, but then I wasn't exactly impressed with the non-Windows-like UI that faced me last time I used Photoshop Elements (version 2 IIRC). And there's nothing particularly wrong with multi-windows, it makes the UI a damn sight more tolerant of unusual display configurations/whatever other windows happen to be open at the time than having the whole thing stuck in a single inflexible window... Oh yes, and it's free. Throw in a copy of Inkscape and you've got one hell of a raster/vector image editing solution, and the money you'll have saved can then be put towards buying your next lens