Winter editing

This time last year, I was driving through floods. The floods weren’t too bad in the Black Country, but the River Tame did flood in places. In winter you can still get interesting pictures. Bare landscapes with trees stripped of their leaves can look quite spectacular in the winter sunshine.

There is always something to photograph. You can create pictures, by first taking the photograph and then editing it. In winter the light is often a problem and so you might need to raise the ISO when taking a shot or use a wider aperture. The standard landscape setting on your camera might make your shots look too dark. The same applies to using auto, we have all these extra settings on cameras for the enthusiast or the professional to get good pictures even in dark conditions.

Winter also means your have more time to edit photos and you can improve a lot of images with Windows Live Gallery which allows you to do basic editing, like increasing the contrast. For more artistic editing I use Photoscape. It’s quite easy to use and as you get used to it, you can combine different features to create images that are unique.

You can download Photoscape free, but notice on that site that you can download from Softronic or CNET, either will do, just make sure you read the text and click the right download button.

I created this image using Photoscape and it quite striking and gets a message across. You start with a simple photo and then experiment until you get an image that you like. There is some skill to taking the photo. When I took this picture, I wanted a lot of silhouette against the cloudy sky. I think it worked quite well.

I’ll finish with some more winter pictures and edits. You can subscribe to this blog, comment or follow me on Twitter.