Now that you’re interested in Digital Photography and you’ve bought a camera ANND you’re made that moral commitment to “edit” the pictures, where do you go from here

Digital Photography Software

It’s time to decide on which software to use. Software is the computer program that will help you “edit” or fix the individual pictures.

Learning software is like learning anything else - trial and error.

The easiest software to start with is a FREE program called Picasa 2.1 which is distributed by Google. You can download it by going to my website, www.digitaldoconline.com, click on the "Important Stuff" page and then click on Picasa 2.1! This action will take you to http://picasa.google.com/index.html the "Free Download" page, then SAVE (to a specific place on your hard drive) and then double click to install it. Picasa 2.1 is constantly updated and is designed to work with the current version and updates of Windows, so if you don't do "Automatic Updates" regularly, update BEFORE you install Picasa 2.1. You can update your computer by going to START, HELP and click on the Windows Update icon.

In Picasa, you will learn (through trial and error - you cannot make a mistake – Picasa never modifies your original image file) some of the basics. You should learn “cropping”, “redeye removal”, “contrast”, etc from the BASIC menu.. There is also a TUNING menu with some tools to modify specific aspects of your image, and the EFFECTS menu allows you make some really interesting changes to your photos!

If you consider Picasa 2.1 your "training wheels", the next program you should move up to is the software that came with your digital camera. You should do this for two reasons - they gave you an instruction book with your camera (that's your best friend) and the "800" number that comes with your camera, also supports the software (usually for the first year). Ask them all the questions you can! This is always an important aspect of all software! Many people say they got something “from a friend” and that’s okay to save money, BUT if you don’t have the instruction manual or toll-free support, many programs are really difficult to use!

Once you understand all the concepts and are familiar with "cropping" and other ways to modify your image, you might be ready to step up in software. The "end-all" of Digital Photography is "Adobe Photoshop CS" which costs over $700 and is very hard to maneuver through. There is even a “User’s Group” devoted to Adobe Photoshop which meets the first Wednesday of each month at 7:30pm at the Bethpage Library. Other widely used programs (all less than $100) are mentioned below, and while both the Adobe and PaintShop programs manipulate photographs more completely, the Roxio program is not only used for manipulating image files, it also has programs to write DVD's, Video editing and Audio editing (Roxio also owns Napster and, I think, includes a free trial of that music service).

The programs (newer editions MAY just be hitting the market when this article is published) are:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/index.html

JASC Paint Shop Pro XI

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CorelCom/Layout&c=Product_C1&cid=1152105040706&lc=en

Roxio EZ Media Creator 9.0

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/suite/overview.html

There are other software programs also available, but I don't recommend them because I have not used them. If you have a program that "works for you," continue to use it until you want to move up to something more sophisticated!