Monthly Archives: June 2012

Picasa Exploration – Joe

Learning never exhausts the mind - Leonardo da Vinci

I’ve been playing around with Picasa for a short while now and I am starting to get the hang of things. I love the simplicity of it and also love its user friendly interface. Once you’re used to it, it usually takes about 10 seconds to crop, edit, sharpen etc per photo. I have tried out the inbuilt auto functions to see what the program comes up with and most of the time the results are quite good. Personally, I prefer to do things manually as I get a better understanding of which function does what. If needed I first crop the photo followed by a bit of light filling and saturation and finally a little sharpening. Once done it is then a simple case of exporting the photos to a folder and, if you prefer, re-sizing them at the same time. It is nowhere in the league of Photoshop and the like but for quick and fast editing it suits me perfectly.

Here are some of the results

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Photographer Profile – Dave B

I’ve known Dave for a few years through a common love of motorcycles, but it was only recently that I found out we also shared a love for photography! After seeing some of his photos on Facebook, I asked Dave if he would like to share some on the blog and possibly make future contributions. Since I really want this blog to help show off others’ work, what better way than a photographic profile – AiM

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Ghosts, flames and things that go pop in the night…

The most tangible of all visible mysteries – fire.  ~Leigh Hunt

I think at one stage or another we’ve all been transfixed and drawn towards the magic of flames. Greek Mythology reads that Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man to allow us to advance ourselves. We’ve done much with it, however we’ve lost a great deal as well. Like most, I’ve had a fascination with fire for as long as I can remember, and for the last eight years I’ve been able to work/play/experiment with a substance called  methylacetylene-propadiene propane (MAPP gas). Late last Sunday night, after a busy day working around the house, I’d set up a space in one of our spare rooms as a studio/study and decided to try a little experiment that had been playing on my mind for a while. The results made me very excited to say the least and I worked on it until nearly midnight.

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The Journey Continues – Joe

My journey with macro continues. I am really enjoying macro photography so I think a dedicated macro lens is definitely on my wish list. I have started playing around with Picasa a little to see if and how I can improve some of my photos, so some of the images here are cropped for what I hope is a better composition. That’s about the extent of it for now as I have only just started with it.

I have also downloaded the latest version of GIMP as it is supposed to be very good. Best of all it’s free. The only disadvantage is the steep learning curve so I’ll see how it goes. We have recently moved off the property and closer to the city so I’m looking forward to some field trips to continue learning.

Hope you enjoy.

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