kdmorgan Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 I was wondering what types of courses, videos, books etc. you used to teach yourself photography. Do you just use your phone or did you invest in a camera? I cannot take a good picture to save my life LOL but I'm determined to learn. Any advise would be appreciated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kandlekrazy Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 I never took a class but when I had a website I invested in a portable light box, I think it was around $100 and I already had a decent digital camera. I used an editing program to enhance the pics, crop, etc. Now I use my phone for everything but I don't have a website anymore and my Samsung takes great pics (considering I too am not very good at picture taking!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trappeur Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 KK I desparately need a good simple for dummies editing program? You have any suggestions. For the life of me I just last night worked for hours in "paint" here on my computer to figure out how to do a simple crop and I cannot figure out how to use paint. I googled and googled it and still can't figure it out. Trappeur 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdmorgan Posted February 2, 2018 Author Share Posted February 2, 2018 I do have the light box and my daughter has a good camera. It's just a frustrating process for me I guess and I get easily discouraged by it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scented Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 (edited) My photography experience started in college as an elective and I use it in my job, however action and not stills. One thing that has helped is to get to know your camera. There are camera shops that offer classes if you want, but there are books and should be videos on youtube as well. Pinterest offers some tips under photography, but to get comfortable with you camera you need to use it. Play with the settings to see what it will do and keep notes so that you can go back and review when you don't necessarily remember. If your camera has a bracketing feature, try it out to see if that will improve exposure to your shot. Unfortunately I haven't found a great photo editing program that's not worth bucks. Jasc Software used to have a Paint Shop Pro program that I liked but I don't know if they're still doing business. We use Photoshop at the office and what I absolutely hate about it is Microsoft went to subscription base instead of letting a person buy the program. For businesses, it's highway robbery. What I see on the app offerings hasn't been a lot of terrific programs. Everything lacks something that I want to manipulate a photo under the free versions. True, I haven't played with all the apps I downloaded either. Here's a link to what's been rated for 2018. Corel has been around forever and has the best reviews it seems. Edited February 2, 2018 by Scented 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kdmorgan Posted February 2, 2018 Author Share Posted February 2, 2018 Thanks Scented Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerven Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Just chiming in since software was mentioned. GIMP, an open-source image editor, can be used to edit photos. Think of it as the free equivalent to Photoshop. The learning curve is a bit steep (like with Photoshop) but there are lots of guides and tutorials out there. GIMP works with raster graphics rather than vector, I believe. Inkscape, which is also free and open-source, supports vector, but I'm not certain if it works as a photo editor. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdcharm Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 (edited) On 2/2/2018 at 9:28 AM, Trappeur said: KK I desparately need a good simple for dummies editing program? You have any suggestions. For the life of me I just last night worked for hours in "paint" here on my computer to figure out how to do a simple crop and I cannot figure out how to use paint. I googled and googled it and still can't figure it out. Trappeur Years ago we bought a scanner and it included PhotoShop, which I have loaded on an older computer and still use it. On my newer computer, however, I haven't invested in PhotoShop, which is a nice program for editing photos, but as suggested by others on another thread, the free program GIMP can be used for certain things. I use it to watermark photos and it does well for that ... the lighting adjustment is not as good as PhotoShop, and the color balance is horrible to try to use, as it just doesn't work the same way. But, for some of the other tools, it's okay. (Trappeur, I'll try to help here.) Now, as for Paint, which is very basic, imo and I hear that Microsoft is going to discontinue it soon. To crop, I would first make a copy of the photo in case anything goes haywire. From "My Documents" click on the file and "copy" and then paste into the folder you're working in so you now have a second copy. Open that copy in your Paint program. Alright, now there is a yellow box at the top toolbar near the left that says "Select" with an arrow pointing down, click on that and choose "Rectangular Selection." Go to your photo and with the left mouse button depressed, draw a square where you wish to crop. Now you will see the "Crop" option of the toolbar turn from gray to black, click on that and it will crop the photo. Edited February 4, 2018 by birdcharm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
birdcharm Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 On 2/2/2018 at 9:28 AM, Trappeur said: KK I desparately need a good simple for dummies editing program? You have any suggestions. For the life of me I just last night worked for hours in "paint" here on my computer to figure out how to do a simple crop and I cannot figure out how to use paint. I googled and googled it and still can't figure it out. Trappeur Trappeur ... did you get that cropping method figured out? I see that I messed up a little when saying to select the rectangle, as you can also select random shapes -- I'm just accustomed to cropping in my other program in squares/rectangles. I hope you got it working for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candybee Posted February 9, 2018 Share Posted February 9, 2018 A few years back I went ahead and paid for the Jasc software program called Paint Shop. So easy to use, very user friendly and I do all my photo editing in it. I also purchased a Kodak camera about the same time and Kodak has its own photo editing program included with the camera purchase. Its free and you just load the program onto your comp from a disc. Its pretty basic but has some nice features. The Paint Shop is much better and I tend to use that instead of the Kodak program. I eventually made my own lightbox from googling instructions and it works pretty good but nothing is as nice as natural lighting. I ahve to add that it does really help to play around with your camera to get to know how to use all the features. When I bought my camera I also purchased a tripod. The tripod helps my still pics have clean crisp lines and images instead of shaky hand held photos. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.