When My Pics Looked Bad, Someone Said I Needed Photo Software
I gotta share this with you. My aunt (God bless her) bought me a digital camera for Christmas and I took a lot of pictures of the family that were, well, a bit sub-standard to say the least. A friend told me to get some photo editing software, which I can’t afford. So I hunted and hunted on Google until I found just what I was looking for.
I came across a fantastic index to photo editing software (and other photo products) called Photo Software News. It has got dozens, no, hundreds of packages on it, from about 200 different vendors. Some are a bit expensive. I suppose they’re for pro photographers. But guess what? Some of them are entirely free! I downloaded a “secret” list of the top 50 free photo software products and now I’m gradually working my way through them.
When I was browsing the site I came to realize there’s a lot more to this topic than just photo editing. For example, the section on Panorama Software is enormous, with programs for stitching images together to make very high-res prints even from a low-res camera.
The best thing about all this is that my pictures really have improved a lot. I used some photo editing software that was recommended on the Beginners section of the site and the colors now look a whole lot better. Then I got a free photo organizer, so I can find the photos quickly (I’ve taken about 2 thousand in under 3 weeks) Now I am thinking about getting some specialist software to reduce the grainy effect you get in low light. They list 8 or 9 different products for that, so I guess I’ll easily find one.
There’s one other reason for talking about this site. It has a great start page for browsing all the best photo sites on the Internet. This special page, which even has its own web address: Photo Start Sheet, has got links to some really big photo directories plus direct links to all the top photo communities, print services, trade shows, and the like. I have made it my home page partly because of the general interest links to news, social networking, sports and travel. I don’t plan to spend every minute of my time snapping photos, but there’s no better place for browsing the web if you’ve taken up photography.
To find my way around all the best photo sites on the web I had used PhotoStartSheet.
