karl.jahr

Photoshop Elements comes as a freebee for many digital cameras and scanners. To me it seems to be almost as capable as Photoshop 7, which I tried and found I would not need it for almost everything I do. Furthermore it is a good entry point into the world of PS, and if you truly outgrow its capabilities you have mastered 90% of the learning curve.

Not true for me. I may take a first picture, then look around and find a better position or foreground or...

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A few years ago I was in Fairbanks/Alaska and encountered the panoramic photo

show of Northern Lights by Leroy Zimmerman. In addition to the photos shown

there, Mr Zimmerman has his web site <P><P>

http://photosymphony.com<P><P>

where he shows pictures from all over the World. In my opinion he is one of the

premier photographers, an equal to Ansel Adams. I highly recommend you view his

pictures on the web and be amazed.<p>

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I also recommend to check out Leroy Zimmerman. He has a permanent photo show in Fairbanks/Alaska with spectacular panoramic pictures of the aurora borealis (Northern Light). In addition he also has panoramic pictures from all over the World. Check out<p><P>

http://photosymphony.com<P><P>

and you will be amazed.

Anywhere in the Mall area. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Capitol, monuments/memorials. Other places might be Old Town Alexandria and Georgetown.

A German saying: "Erlaubt ist was gefaellt", meaning it's permitted if it pleases.<p>

 

Why do we need all those rules. Let everybody do the hobby or profession to personal liking and taste.

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The Academie Francaise had all those rules leading to a lot of in my humble opinion stiff and artificial pictures. Then van Gogh and Co. came along and broke them and we got a whole new look of the world.

For the gallery and critique forum I try not to exceed width 650 and height 450. That way they show without a need to scroll (at least that's true on my 15" laptop.

Just to stop banning these pictures: I just started a No Words Forum Venice/Paris and hope we will find some fine non-touristy pictures.

Reflection of the Opera in the window of a boutique

(Sorry previous posting missed the picture)<div></div>

Reflection of the Opera in the window of a boutique

One more<div></div>

Someone just suggested to ban pictures of Venice and Paris for three

months. I don't agree. There are many places off the beaten path worth

taking pictures of. Here are a few. Keep it going.<div></div>

Come on, folks. Nothing wrong with pictures taken <b>in</b> Venice/Paris, not <b>of</b> Venice/Paris. There are many places that snapshotters/snapshooters(?) don't see and thus ignore in favor of postcard pictures that they could buy in every souvenir shop. I just came back from Venice. The first six pictures in my gallery should prove my point.

You can also use photoshop and do image/resize/image size. If you don't use photoshop try plain old Microsoft Paint which comes on every version of Windows. There you can use image/stretch-scew and set some identical horizontal and vertical percentage values (don't increase small pictures, however by going above 100%. Quality will suffer.

There is (hopefully was) a guy who, when in the critique forum, rated every single picture as 6/6 regardless of quality. His critique stats were 9000+ of 10000 ratings were 6s and another 400 were 7s. This does not make sense and ruins what is left of the rating system.

You seem to have a nice portfolio. Why don't you load some of your pictures to this site?

Number two:

I used my Canon EOS Digital Rebel (6.3 MP version of two years ago) with a Canon 28-200mm f3.5/5.6 zoom without use of tripod. I always found a place where I could place my camera and relied on automatic exposure and focus. Here are two pictures I came up with after some cropping.

Yes, and you can do much more with your pictures such as cropping, lighting, sharpening and any kind of photoshopping. If you buy on eBay, make sure you get the Photoshop Elements disk that came with the camera. It lets you do almost anything you can do with Photoshop without the high expense of the full version.

To take this picture I took a very long exposure time using the wide

angle setting of my zoom lens. Then, midway through exposure, keeping

the shutter open, I moved the lens to the tele setting.<div></div>

More on your subject: I do not understand why use of film would be a good first step. It's expensive if you are looking for large prints rather than what you can get from commercial mass labs: You need a film scanner and while there are good ones at reasonable prices, there is the dust problem that will drive you nuts.

Forgot to mention: You don't have to worry about pixelation with this resolution. I do not think that with your limited budget you will be able to buy a printer to print pictures large enough to run into this problem. I have displayed some of my pictures on a 40" LCD display, and - if the quality of the display is good - then the pictures do not suffer. And remember, as you become more proficient and your needs increase you can always sell your camera and buy today's camera at a steep discount.

You deserve a better camera. Canon Digital Rebel is a very good choice. Its original 6 Megapixel version of two years ago has been overtaken by the 8 Megapixel version and then by one with 10 MP. Because it is "outdated" you will find it on eBay for very reasonable prices (I guess about half its original price). Don't fall for the first one you see and check the performance ratings of the seller. Ask the seller to take a highest resolution picture of a sheet of white paper and send it to you to see whether there are any artifacts on the sensor and note: A common scam is that some crook "harvests" good ratings by selling and promptly delivering cheap trinkets and then cheats on an expensive one. Check what s/he has sold.<p>

 

Check my portfolio. All pictures taken since 2005 have been taken with the Canon EOS Digital Rebel.

There is a flip side to this: I recently noted one named member who rated every picture in the critique forum as 6/6. This happened several days in the last two weeks. His stats show he rated more than 10,000 pictures, 9000+ at 6 and 400+ at 7. That's even worse for the entire rating system than someone rating an individual's postings a 3/3.