Mallow Camera Club

Some of these web sites may stretch the definition of “education” slightly but even looking at photos is an education if they inspire you. Here are the links I talked about at last night’s club meeting:

• Google Reader is a feed reader where you can subscribe to websites that have a feed. See the video below for an explanation of what an RSS feed is and what you can do with it.
• Photonotes
• Boards.ie Photography forum
• Photo.net
• Photography Ireland forums
• Photodoto
• Photojojo
• Strobist
• DIY Photography
• Photosig
• Digital Photography School
• 2 minute Photoshop tricks
• Alkos
• George Barr
• Chromasia
• Camera Porn
• Flak Photo
• JMG Galleries
• Photo Attorney
• Mark Hancock
• Digital Journalist
• Online Photographer
• Fine art photo blog
• Rymus
• Pana Vision
• Inphotos dot org
• Latchiko
• Flickr is a huge photography site with social aspects to it. I’m a member there.
• Redbubble where you can sell your photos. Here’s my gallery there.

And of course, Luminous Landscape.

On Sunday next, March 9th, a number of photographers will meet at The Lough in Cork for a photowalk around this scenic area. I’ll be there for 3pm and all are welcome to come, no matter what type of camera you have or your skill level.

For further details and a map, take a look at the Photowalking around The Lough post on my blog. Unfortunately it does clash with a few other events (who’d have thought a Sunday was so busy?) but hopefully we’ll see a few members there.

Summary notes and links for my talk last night. I’ll expand a little on this as I find time over the next day or so.

Get the GIMP from gimp.org. It’s a free download. The Windows version weighs in at around 16MB, but it also runs on Mac OS X and Linux. (On Mac OS X you’ll have to install the X11 package too)

Essential GIMP tools for photographers:

1. Curves
2. Levels
3. Crop
4. Resize
5. Unsharp Mark

Layers are a very important part of the post processing experience. Learn to use them along with layer masks and modes.

A handy way of creating a polarizer effect on a blue sky is by creating a new transparent layer, set the mode to overlay, and then select the gradient tool. Make sure it’s set to FG->transparent and the foreground colour is black. Draw from the top of your image. Hey Presto!

Dodge/Burn functions do exactly what they do in the darkroom. They brighten and darken areas of the image you apply them to. Remember to apply gently, not like I did last night!

2008-02-11 Update – GIMP For Photographers: Levels covers the basics of using the levels tool!