A New Day, A Different Way The creative and photographic endeavours of a woman trying to add color and beauty to her world.

Here is another post about economical photography.  It is my opinion that photo editing software can be very expensive and really very difficult to learn.  Yes, if you are willing to spend a lot of time on google you can find tutorials but I find that quite time consuming.  I also found I was overwhelmed by all the different programs out there and do I really only need one, do I need them all and what is the difference between them.  Truthfully I haven't answered that question yet.  But for anyone interested in editing and improving their photos or even just adding text, texture or other interesting elements to their photos I have a recommendation.

I have been taking Kim Klassen's Skinny Mini e-course on Photoshop Elements 9, she offers this 10 day course for free and I have to say it has been a great experience.   You can actually download a trial version of Elements 9 and use it for 30 days for free, this will give you lots of time to determine if you want to invest in the program and the nice thing about elements is it is only around $100 to purchase which is quite a bit less than Photoshop CS or Lightroom.  You can check out Kim's e-course and elements without spending a dime and see if it is the right program for you.

The e-course is running right now and registration is closed but she will be running another one soon so watch her website.  She also offers a follow up course that digs way deeper for $79.

Here is a sample of what I have learned in the last week.  Below are three before and after photos, none of these shots are exceptional and even after editing they are not great shots but I think they offer a good example of what someone who didn't have a clue a week ago is able to edit their photos to improve the quality of them.  

I have an issue sometimes in the winter with finding shots I am actually interested in taking.  The lack of color bores me so when I found these purple bushes I thought they would make a great shot.  Which I think on their own they did.  But by adding a layer in Elements and then selecting the soft light blending mode I was able to make the color pop a little more.


 In the first image the black horse appears to be one solid color, other than the tip of his nose you really can't see any detail at all.  For this photo I added a layer and then using levels I toned down the black in the photo.  This took out all of the detail in the snow so with another adjustment layer I used the brush to brush away the level adjustment on everything but the black horse to bring the detail back to everything else. 

With this photo I was playing around with a new lens that I am having difficulty with.  The first photo isn't even usable as it is because it is just way to dark.  I don't really like the finished photo either but I used this because it shows how dramatically I can change the photo.  Again I added a layer and then used levels to tone down the black in the photo and to bring out the colors in the flowers.  I then used the adjustment layer to remove some of the additional color from the stems of the flowers because they were way to bright.

I am sure someone with more photoshop experience could have done even more with these photos but keep in mind I have only been working with this program for a little over a week.