> Alvin
> I am no "photographer", not even an amateur, but I am constantly learning,
> and I love shooting roadsters. Black is a tough color for me to capture so I
> tried shooting my roadster at sunset this evening. I took a grip of pictures
> and I narrowed it down to a few.
Alvin,
Good work. Sunrise and sunset shots with subjects, especially dark ones, in
the foreground are tough. The latest versions of Photoshop (CS2) and
Photoshop Elements (version 4 was recently released for both PC and Mac)
have excellent tools for tweaking just the shadow areas like you're dealing
with. Elements is more than adequate for most folks and is usually available
for $70 or less whereas CS2 is $500 or more. Check Fry's Electronics Friday
newspaper ads, or the usual on-line suspects like Outpost.com, Newegg.com or
Amazon.
There are excellent learning resources for both apps. Just bought a 2 in 1
book at Costco (or maybe Sam's) that included P/S Elements 4 for Digital
Photographers and P/S Elements Down & Dirty Tricks, both by Scott Kelby. It
was $29, which is a heck of a deal, IMO. Scott is a very well known P/S
expert and president of the National Association of P/S Professionals
(NAPP). NAPP membership id $99 for the first year, usually $10 less to
renew. For your money you get your choice of a number of instructional DVDs
and/or books, 8 issues of Photoshop User magazine per year, access to the
members only areas of (photoshopuser.com) and discounts on software and
seminars. They've also recently launched P/S Elements Techniques, both as a
newsletter and website (photoshopelementsuser.com/). A year's subscription
is $49 ($39 if you belong to NAPP). You can sometimes get either magazine at
Barnes & Nobles if you want to check them out, and there's a lot of good
stuff on both sites available to non-members.
Yes, I'm hip deep in both, but then I get paid to play with this stuff. My
primary gig is doing A/V production and teleconferencing for the VA and I
also do a lot of still shooting both at work and as a LONG time hobby. Now
I'm getting our grandkids into photography, particularly our 13 and 14 year
old grandsons. Weekend after next I'll be taking them to the local air show.
At last year's show between the three of us we shot over 1100 pictures and I
took the younger one up for a ride in a Beech 18. Needless to say it was a
lot of fun.
HTH,
Ron
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