What makes a good photo
A good photo is not about the equipment you have. There are many great shots taken on a Box Brownie. It is about composition, aesthetics, perception and the use of light.
There is now a fantastic site which talks about the basics of photography. It is called Photo Tips
Kodak has composed the tutorials. There are rules to photography from taking shots of babies to what you are going to sell on ebay to something you might one day publish. All the basics of good composition and lighting are on this site.
Having a good photo editor is also probably necessary these days. Now, Photoshop and Paint shop pro are the best, but they cost. I have a list of free graphic editors on oz web hub. But here are a couple of new ones, also free.
PhotoPad is one of them. It has an attractive interface and does what most people want when it comes to photo editing. It crops, straightens and corrects colour and removes red-eye.
Photoscape is another. It’s not as good looking as Photo Pad but it functions just like it. It does a few extra things too. There’s a back lighting effect and a ‘bloom’ feature making for glam portraits.
There is another application which does only one thing. ShiftN straightens converging verticals. There’s no preview in this app but if all you want to do is correct that photo you have of the Empire State building, then it’s for you.
Happy learning!
July 21st, 2008 at 1:24 am
I use photoshop well still learning to use it, Thanks for the links to the free programs sometimes it easier to use this program that the paid one.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Nice tips. This is useful for everyone.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:22 am
I don’t think I could live without Photoshop but Paintshop Pro is much cheaper and can manage a lot of the same functions. As far as free alternatives go, the new version of Gimp is easy to use and very powerful.
When I studied photography (old fashioned wet photography that is) we were taught to get the highlights right and let the shadows look after themselves, as well as a lot of other technical stuff which applies equally to digital photography. (Photoshop etc. replicates a lot of conventional tools like dodge, burn etc.).
However; with my family photos, I don’t really think in those terms. As long as the photo is in focus I’m not too worried about technicalities. A good photo is one that captures the personality of the subject. If it’s one of me it doesn’t make me look too awful…