Photography

I recently acquired a copy of Photoshop - and Marcia has helped me to learn how to use it. She, herself, has been working with it for a very long time - and she knows a lot of tricks. She helped me to modify one photo of mine; we removed some items in the background that just cluttered up the picture. Instead, we left just the background wall color - and we were able to make that striated so that it looked more interesting and artistic. I was happy enough with the final product that I plan to give it as a gift. I can see that this is just the beginning, and I have a lot to learn - but this is going to be so much fun!

In the photo group that we belong to - some members actually create completely new pictures using Photoshop. For last Tuesday night's meeting, many members brought their own photos to show to the group - asking for suggestions on how to improve them. One member explained to us how he had combined the elements of two different photos into one to create a scene that did not exist in reality. He had spent more than twenty hours at his computer working with Photoshop to do that. That same person had taken another picture -- one of a girl swimming in a pool - and he had changed the pool to look like the ocean by changing the background from a pool to a sky. Another member showed us some beautiful nature shots he had taken and then converted to very striking black, silver, and white pictures. Still another member described how he removed an unwanted animal from his photo so that it would appear more balanced. One suggestion made for improving a picture was to change the direction of some tree branches. All of these changes can be accomplished on my own computer. It's amazing!