Entries tagged with “photo editing” from O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

I sorted through the various versions of the GIMP bitmap editor available for the Mac last week. This week, I report on what I found after playing with GIMP on my slightly underpowered Macbook. The results were good. In fact, very good IMHO.

I had never heard of Pixelmator until last week. But, I'm glad I did now. This low-cost image/photo editor is now one of the most used tools on my MacBook. It is very fast and was easy to learn to use.

Adobe Bridge's Flatten View feature allows you to see all the contents of your subfolders in one window. Working with a large project becomes easier when you can visually scan your entire project. Here's where to find that handy, if obscure, button in the Filter panel.

As an argument for keeping photos on file, and being prepared to revisit their treatment in the digital darkroom, this image is a good case in point. The original was a wild flower along the lines of a dandelion in a field near Sea Ranch. I photographed it this summer in the early morning, covered with drops from a heavy ocean mist.

Despite all the new goodies in iPhoto '08, such as event-based organization, I'm most pleased with the overhauled Adjust palette. There are real Levels controls similar to those in Photoshop, Highlights and Shadows sliders, and Noise adjustment (particularly handy for compact camera shooters at high ISOs). This brings iPhoto's Adjust palette up to snuff with other modern photo management...

If you grant my premise that digital photography is an entirely new medium of expression, then you have to wonder about the prevalence of metaphors that use the techniques of analog photography. In Photoshop, we use the Dodge and Burn tools. We "cross process" using Nik's excellent library of Photoshop filters (among other digital "cross processing" techniques). We produce versions...

My quest for perfect B&W prints from digital capture has led me to some very cool tools. The two most important have been a Photoshop plug-in called Alien Skin Exposure and the Epson R2400 printer. Working with this software/hardware tandem has produced satisfying results reminiscent of my darkroom days. Here's a quick look at how I use this software/hardware...