Photography Editing software

Corel Paint Shop Pro x6 by Adobe. (The original Adobe but more advanced for artists who like to paint)

Link to the website used - http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/


Review found on Digital Arts website as shown above.  This products advantages simply are that there are more paint tools available for an artist if they work with brushes more than histograms and exposures.  There are multiple settings and a larger number of brush tools and more mixing of pallets than what you would normally get with Photoshop.  The program gives you the option to sample colours and choose from a number of different brush tools and settings.


Here are images of what the software looks like and how it can be used when selecting your tools.

 Price £262.50
 Vat

Disadvantages - Sometimes runs a bit slow.


By Julie & Danni x

This is another app on my iphone called Light Meter. It is a free app and it works just like a standard light meter. I use it for analogue photography, I just input my film's ISO, then point the phone camera at what I want to shoot and it tells me the correct shutter speed and aperture. I was a bit reluctant to use it at first because it was free and I didn't know how reliable it was, but I tried it with a roll of film and the film turned out fine. 

This is the photoshop express app on my iphone. It is a very basic mobile editing app by photoshop. It has filters, frames and basic effects and adjustments such as crop and red eye remover. The app that I use is the free version, there is another version that has more effects and filters available but you have to pay for it. Here are some screenshots that I took from my phone to show some of the features of the app:

When I have finished editing a picture it then gives me the option to share it through various forms of social media based on the apps I already have installed on my phone such as facebook, flickr, tumblr and email. Alternatively I can just save it to my camera roll to share at a later date.

Project Idea #2

Another idea I have for my project is to create an information leaflet for Knowsley Safari Park. To do this I will consider things like:

• Current animals
• Opening times
• Prices
• Activities available
• Maps
• Safety
• Facilities
• General information about the safari drive and walk around area

I will visit the park and take various photographs of both the animals and the park to illustrate my leaflet.

Project Idea #1

One of my ideas for the PDF project is to illustrate Lady Gaga's Prelude Pathétique, which is a speech/video written and directed by Lady Gaga and initially used as a sneak peak of the video for her single 'Marry the Night' before it was released and then turned out to actually be used in the full version of the official music video. It is quite a deep and emotional speech which is very personal to her because she used the video to re-enact her past and tell us the story of how she fought to get where she is today. The words to the Prelude Pathétique are:

"When I look back on my life, it's not that I don't want to see things exactly as they happened, it's just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way. And truthfully the lie of it all is much more honest because.. I invented it. Clinical psychology tells us arguably that trauma is the ultimate killer. Memories are not recycled like atoms and particles in quantum physics, they can be lost forever. It's sort of like my past is an unfinished painting, and as the artist of that painting I must fill in all the ugly holes and make it beautiful again. It's not that I've been dishonest, it's just that I loathe reality. For example, those nurses? They're wearing next season Calvin Klein, and so am I. And the shoes? Custom Giuseppe Zanotti. I tipped their gauge caps to the side like Parisian berets because I think it's romantic, and I also believe that mint will be very big in fashion next spring. Check out this nurse on the right, she's got a great ass. Bam. The truth is, back then at the clinic, they only wore those funny hats to keep the blood out of their hair. And that girl on the left? She ordered gummy bears and a knife a couple of hours ago. They only gave her the gummy bears. I'd wish they'd only given me the gummy bears."

The idea I have is to take a series of images that illustrate this speech from my point of view and then look further into the Marry the Night song and video and the story that she is telling us through them. 

Youtube Video: The Prelude Pathétique (Official)

Studio

ISO 100

f/8

1/60th 

When I took this picture for some reason the flash failed to fire properly and I ended up with this image. I tried it a second time and it worked a lot better as seen in the picture below:

This image used the exact same manual settings as the picture above, but with a properly working flash. I think the colours in the image look a bit washed out and desaturated though, so I have edited this and the rest of the pictures I took with Photoshop by altering the levels and curves to make them look more saturated and true to colour - as seen in the images below:

Below is a rough plan of the studio set up that was used to capture these photographs:

On my Olympus OM10 35mm SLR camera there are less manual options. Whereas on my DSLR I have the freedom to set my own ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance and the option of manual focus, my 35mm only allows me to set the aperture and the ISO, and even the ISO can only be one particular setting based on the film I load. The lens however can only be manually focused as there is no AF function. The shutter speed on this particular camera cannot be manually set, the camera chooses it automatically based on my ISO and aperture.

Image: Olympus OM10 35mm camera

 For manual settings on a DSLR camera you are in full control of your camera's settings including your shutter speed, ISO and aperture.
By setting your camera to manual you have the flexibility to be able to adjust your aperture depending on the lighting conditions and the nature of your shoot i.e. landscape, portraits.
You will find the manual button located at the top of your camera, usually on a dial that you can operate yourself.

Image 1: Manual dial

By using the manual settings you can also adjust your white balance and choose your own depth of field. The lower the aperture, the less depth of field you get.
Also, by setting your camera to manual you can achieve a greater depth of field by manually adjusting your white balance for aperture compensation.

To ensure you get the correct exposure for your lighting conditions it is best to use a light meter. Some cameras have these already built in.
You will find manual settings on all camera devices, including SLR's, DSLR's, phones and compacts.

Image 2: Manual display and controls

Image 3: A page of a camera manual

Image 4: All of the camera's manual dials

Some examples of images shot using the manual mode: