I thought maybe today I would try something a little different. Well, at least a little different for me. I’m finding it more difficult each day to get out and explore with the camera. The hope for cooperating weekends don’t always work out so today I’m posting some information about image processing.

When I started this journey into photography I was as green as could be. My extent of photographic ability amounted to transferring the pictures from the camera to my computer and throwing away the ones that didn’t make the cut. I used Google Picasa to organize the images and do minor adjustments like cropping or rotating. The first piece of software I trialed was Lightroom. I eventually purchased a full version and have been using it as my main processing tool for over a year

The second piece of software I started using was Photoshop Elements. My daughter had a copy with the tablet she received for Christmas one year and after struggling with version 7 I decided to buy myself the latest version which was 10. I’m getting better at using Elements and find I use it for an image that needs more than a basic manipulation.

And then the most exciting thing happened just about a year ago…

I entered my name in a contest offered by one of the photographers on Google+ for a copy of Topaz Labs plugins for Lightroom/Photoshop. Now, I have the most terrible of luck and actually forgot all about the contest until I received an email stating I won a copy of the whole plugin bundle. It really changed the way I work on my images. Of course, at first I went overboard and was doing too much processing. Eventually I learned when and how to use all the tools to create the images I wanted. Sometimes I want a natural looking image and sometimes I want to create something more than just a picture.

I recently downloaded onOne Software’s Perfect Effects 4 Free. Which is a completely free fully functioning version of their software but with only a handful of the presets used to manipulate an image. I’m always curious about other options. I am very impressed with this software! With just a few clicks I was able to manipulate an otherwise blah image and pump it up.

The image below is straight out of the camera other than my normal import processing and cropping.

In the Perfects Effects software I used two of the included presets; Tonal Contrast and Orton Hears a Who. The software uses layers to allow for staking of the preset effects. Also included are basic manipulation brushes for color, contrast, dodge, burn, etc. There is a masking technology built into the software so it is extremely easy to only affect the area of your image you want to modify.

This normally would not have been an image I would have worked on. I wanted to capture the geese on the swamp but I only brought my wide angle zoom and did not have the reach I needed for the image. I loaded this one into the Perfect Effects software just to play around and ended up being pleasantly surprised. It has me looking closer at the onOne software and maybe after the first of the year I’ll get myself a belated Christmas present. 🙂