Photo Journey

Really helpful plug-ins or free-standing programs -- all freeware!

Here is a small list of pretty helpful programs. Some of these are Photoshop plug-uns. Others are independent programs. All are free! Let me know what you think of them!

• CleanskinFX [link]
  A program that cleans skin
• Neat Image [link]
  Removing image noise. get the free version; it's good enough.
• DPI counter [link]
  A heppful tool when printing your images
• Virtualphotographer [link]
  A great little program that creates all kinds of analog film looks. Sure you can do all this in Photoshop with layers and modes, but this program does it so nicely and quickly!
• Gimp [link]
  A free imagee manipulation program with some very professional tools.
• XNview [link]
  A very quick image browser. It's fast!
• Gallery constructor [link]
  Want to put image galleries on the web? This is the tool!
• Lightshow [link]
  A funny little program that creates light effects.

OK, I admit: I got these links from a amagazine (Chip Foto and Video, June 2006). Still, I have tried almost all of these, and they are great! Enjoy - and let me know what you think!

Bethany in black&white

Two weeks ago in Lisbon I took a friend of mine out to the beach and shot a number of great images. I used my 70-200/f2.8; my 28-70/f2.8 and my 85/f1.4. This was shot mith my 70-200mm, f2.8 and 1/1000s, 200 Asa.

How does he do that?

I enjoy browsing arouund on the forums of dpreview.com. One of the forums I frequent 'Retouching.' You can find 'before' and 'after' images there.

Yesterday I came across this image. I decided to play with it, to see if I could copy the effect. The author says he applied levels, curves, paint with light and a slight dof to the background. OK -- I know how to do all that. But I cannot get my image to look as powerful as his. Here is the original, and his version.