New Member from Oklahoma

[janewenk]

Hello;

I am a new member and photographer. I do take a lot of photos for scrapbooks, but recently got a really nice camera and I am looking at learning how to take great photos with it. I am exicited to have found this website and hope to learn alot from you guys!

[Ludwig]

Welcome Jane,
You will find a friendly and helpful group here. Much to enjoy and learn. Jump in, show some of your photos.

[Cindi]

Hi Jane.
Cambridge in Colour is the best website ever. Very well-run, with extremely helpful and talented members.
You'll learn a lot here.

[janewenk]

Thanks guys! Whats a good photo editor to use? Suggestions, pros or cons?

[Donald]

Thanks guys! Whats a good photo editor to use? Suggestions, pros or cons?

Rather than provide a definitive answer, can I throw some other questions back at you.

• What camera are you using; i.e. is it capable of shooting in RAW as well as JPG?
• If so, are you shooting in RAW (there's no use getting some really effective post-processing software unless you are)?
• What sort of budget have you got available, or would you be looking to utilise a free package?

[janewenk]

Donald;
I have a Canon EOS Rebal T3i camara. It does have a raw setting, but I have not explored that yet. If I understand correctly, If I shoot raw, I would have to have a photo editor as well. I just went to a workshop here in OKC with photographer Tom Ulrich and he said he took his in raw. I took lots of notes, it was really interesting.

Today is my birthday, and I just got home from work and my son and husband just gave me Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 & Adobe Premier Elements 10, so I guess I will just start there, lol.

I am so excited to to learn more about my camera and taking photos. I am a bit overwelmed right now, basically taking photos with the with the "auto" settings. I did get a dvd with my camera to learn more about how to use the manual settings, but haven't had much time to watch it.

Thank you so much for talking with me on this. I am so glad I found this site!
Jane

[gpzt]

Hi Jane!
I couldn't resist the envy to welcome an OKie in Cambridge in Color, of which I am a new member too. I have strong sentimental links with Oklahoma, where I spent what has probably been the most wonderful year in my life. In 1955 (yes I am 74 now !), I was granted a scholarship from the "American Field Service" which enabled me to attend my senior High School year in NW Classen High, Oklahoma City. Just imagine the kind of discovery it has been for me, coming from the "old world", some ten years after World War II. I daresay this experience has influenced me for the rest of my life. I am now retired in Southern France after having practiced Gyn-OB for some 35 years in Liege, Belgium,where I was born. Photography has been a hobby all my life ( I still have Kodachromes that date back to my stay in the US). I have turned "digital" in 2007 and enjoy post processing very much, as I have never had enough leisure time to invest in the field during my professional years. Landscape photography is my favourite activity. Being a retiree, I have decided to use free software (The Gimp, Picturenaut, Hugin, Luminance, Faststone, etc) which all suit me perfectly.
Best regards,
Guy
PS: please forgive my english, which is not what it used to be (French is my native language and being close to the spanish border, I also speak some spanish)

[Donald]

I have a Canon EOS Rebal T3i camara.

Jane

Sorry I missed your response a couple of days ago now.

I think you will find that 100% of us on here will say - Shoot RAW. That puts you in control of the image, not the camera, because what you get out is the raw data ready for you to process, not an image that's already been processed by the camera that you cannot do very much to in addition to what's already been done. What that means is that you're stuck with the camera's interpretation of what you wanted the image to look like, not your interpretation. Start shooting RAW and then you take charge of what the final picture looks like.

And you've now got a very good tool to do it.

With Elements 10, you will have got Adobe Camera RAW. That's where you will start. You process your RAW file and then do further work on it in Elements.

It is all about experimentation and discovery at this stage. You'll make lots and lots of mistakes. But that's what learning is about. You'll get to the stage of thinking that this RAW file stuff is just nonsense and too hard to understand and life would be simpler if you just go back to what you were doing. Stick with it. It will begin to make sense. And the good thing to remember is that no matter what you do, you can always go back to the beginning because your original RAW file will always be there intact.

So, it's now a case of lots of practice and practice ... and patience!

ps - And a belated Happy Birthday.

[janewenk]

Bonjour Guy!

Your English is wonderful! So glad to meet you. I took French all through out school, although I don't remember much. Not much use for French in Oklahoma, ha ha. I always wanted to vist France, still hope to some day. Landscape and nature are my main focus with this new camera, although I still get a shot or two of my grandson. Thanks for the info on the free software. I am really excited to learn more about taking great photos!

Jane

[janewenk]

Donald,
Thanks for the birthday wishes and info on RAW. That is what I thought it was, so it is good to know I can get help when I work up the courage to do that.
Jane

[gpzt]

Bonjour Guy!

Your English is wonderful! So glad to meet you. I took French all through out school, although I don't remember much. Not much use for French in Oklahoma, ha ha. I always wanted to vist France, still hope to some day. Landscape and nature are my main focus with this new camera, although I still get a shot or two of my grandson. Thanks for the info on the free software. I am really excited to learn more about taking great photos!

Jane

Hi Jane,
It was nice receiving your answer to my message. Do follow Donald's advice to take your pics in RAW from the start: keeping RAW files is like having the negatives of all your pictures in "classical" photography. Canon offers an excellent Raw treatment which is called DPP which will convert your original RAW pics into JPEG or Tiff that you can process with The Gimp or any post processing software. The Gimp is the closest to Photoshop but it is absolutely free. It is considered as being a bit difficult to use at first but, believe me, it's not. Anyway, there are a lot of free tutorials (in english!) that you can download. I think Donald himself uses The Gimp. The current version is 2.6.12 but a new version, 2.8, is due to appear in the coming weeks. I switched
-rather reluctantly I must confess - to digital in 2007, after more than 50 years of classical photography, and have never regretted this decision. Do feel free to ask any question: I' ll do my best to answer (provided I'm able to). Enclosed you will find some pics of where I live
Best regards, Guy

[janewenk]

Wow, your photos are beautiful! My favorite of these is the first one!
Jane