Dogwood

This is a post that will probably make serious photographers cringe, but here goes, anyway, with my apologies aforehand.

Sometimes, I carefully compose photographs BEFORE they are taken, being conscious of the ambient lighting, the angle of the shot, the focus, the amount of zoom, the position of the desired subject, the clutter in the background, and so forth. But, being so precise is not always possible because of time constraints and the level of one's patience on any given day.

However, this does not mean that good results cannot be achieved in the end. As an example, I submit for consideration this photo-digital artwork of dogwood blossoms (Cornus florida) from the tree in the front yard. On the day this shot was taken, I did not have the time, nor the patience, to take extreme care with the shot, so it was basically a pause-and-shoot before continuing with my busy schedule.

I really like this photo-digital artwork and think it turned out nicely! 😊 However, let me show you the less-than-desirable original shot from which this artwork was derived:

As is obvious with anyone possessing even a modicum of photographic skills, there are many problems with the above shot. For one thing, the sloping roof of the house dominates the right-side of the shot. The lighting is not good; in fact, the sun is casting undesirable shadows in places, and the light is not balanced. There are bare twigs sticking off the branch to the left of the flower near the center of the shot. I could go on, but I am sure the reader gets the idea by now.

First, I cropped the original shot to the area of the aqua rectangle. The aspect ratio of the rectangle matches the 16:9 ratio of both the camera in my phone AND the screen-resolution of my computer. Then, I edited-out the bare twigs to the left of the big blossom. I played with the color balance to compensate for the lighting. Lastly, the grungy 'texture' layer was added at a low opacity and the layers merged together.

By doing the editing and processing on the computer, I was able to tweak the photograph at a less-busy time during my day, and the process was a fun, stress-relieving activity for me. It also salvaged what might have otherwise been a wasted attempt at a photo capture.

Some quickie-shots do not require so much effort to salvage, such as this snapshot of a bouquet of flowers, which only needed a little cropping and some contrast enhancement /softening to turn a regular shot into a more-lovely vision:

Some shots require processing to bring out details which the eye can see but the camera has trouble capturing as the eye sees them. In this last example, my unaided eye could clearly see the moon and the wispy clouds in the scene; however, they are barely visible in the original shot (on the left), but a little processing brought them out, nicely, as well as accentuated the branches and bark on the tree:

When the subject of photo editing comes up, people often ask me what software I use, so I will answer that here and tell why it was chosen.

Sometime in the early 2000s (circa 2001-2002), a friend of mine thought she wanted to do some photo editing and purchased a program called PaintShopPro™ for about USD $100. After loading the software on her computer and playing with it for a couple of days, she discovered that it was not something she enjoyed as much as she thought she might. So, she uninstalled the software and offered the CDROM to me. As soon as I started playing with the software, I fell in love with it and was very grateful for her giving it to me!

Her obtaining this software for such a great price was a really BIG deal in those days. For one thing, the free GIMP software for Linux that I tried was a bit cumbersome to use and lacked some key features that I wanted. Another option, Adobe® PhotoShop™, was selling for over USD $1000 at the time, which was NOT a good option for a personal user on an amateur photography level. All the other editing software available did some of the things the others did, but only PaintShopPro™ offered a good quality software at an unbeatable price.

One of my coworkers was an admitted "PhotoShop™ snob," who always bragged about the capabilities of the software and what he could do with it (and he was, indeed, very good at what he did!). I'll never forget the day I showed him PaintShopPro™ and how amazed he was. His beloved PhotoShop™, for instance, only handles raster graphics, which required him to also purchase Adobe® Illustrator™ for his vector needs. My cheaper PaintShopPro™ handles vector graphics and raster graphics with equal ease. It also includes support for layers, color channels, palettes, masks, and all sorts of other useful features. My copy of PaintShopPro™ was written by the original developer, JASC®, but the software was acquired by Corel® many years ago. I am sure Corel® has probably only made it better. If anyone is interested in checking out the latest version of the software, just click here