first post

cvancotthem

hello everyone
my name is chase im 15 and i live in seattle washington
i enjoy capturing moments in life as they are only there for one instant and then they change

here is a picture of the cranes at the port of seattle
please let me know what you think

DJ-S1

Very nice job, Chase! Welcome aboard and keep posting.

Thwack

Nice shot! Did you happen to shoot it RAW? When was it shot?

If it's recent enough and you have a RAW version, you could follow the steps in the current "digital darkroom" challenge to bring up the detail in the cranes.

If you crop the shop across the top (just barely above the bright, horizontal, thin coulds) it makes the shot look more like a landscape. The extra detail from above would make that an even cooler shot.

Very nice color in that sunset.

cvancotthem

thanks im not sure what RAW is
i have a panasonic point and shoot camera and i just turned it onto landscape and took it
the picture was taken recently, i think
im not sure how to do all the fancy editing either
what is the "digital darkroom"?
i tried microsoft paint (lol not exactly the same as photosop though) and when i remove the top section of the photo it turns to white instead of removing the space any ideas?

wxwax

Hiya cvan, welcome aboard! I tried shooting those same cranes, from the ballpark, when I was in your town. They're awfully photogenic.

Thwack

definitions/explanations
RAW is a format for saving pictures inside some cameras....usually requires an expensive camera (above $600-ish though that's not a rigid definition). It preserves more information about the image you took than a camera that just saves in JPEG format (which is what all of mine use).

Digital Darkroom is a phot editing challenge here on SmugMug. You can read about the current one, past ones, etc by pointing your browser at:

http://www.dgrin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10

MS Paint uses a fixed canvas size if I recall correctly (I try not to use Windows though I have had to use MS Paint a few times). You need something that will "crop" your picture for you. That reduces the boundaries of the pictures as though you'd taken a pair of scissors and sliced off part of the pic.

You'll get lots of suggestions around here for things to consider or try. They're not requirements, just thoughts from various folks about what might look cool to do to a pic you posted.

If you browse through the existing threads, you can learn all sorts of cool editing tricks. The Digital Darkroom challenges are a good place to start.

Even if they're finished, they're worth doing on your own for practice (if you have editing software).

lynnma

cvancotthem wrote:

hello everyone
my name is chase im 15 and i live in seattle washington
i enjoy capturing moments in life as they are only there for one instant and then they change

here is a picture of the cranes at the port of seattle
please let me know what you think

Hi cvan welcome aboard!!

cvancotthem

thanks for the advice Thwack
i think this weekend i may go to the store to get some software to try editing with
i have never edited before but it seems like fun

yeah Wxwax the Safeco Field is a great place to take pictures of seattle
when it isnt raining the views can be amazing

i have one more question that i cant seem to figure out is how to put a link to my smugmug page in my signature
i type it in but it does not create the link automatically
i think i need some html code but im not sure what

cvancotthem

here is another picture i took from the ballpark
i thought the clouds looked neat but the light off the water is a little bright

Head in the Clouds

cvancotthem wrote:

here is another picture i took from the ballpark
i thought the clouds looked neat but the light off the water is a little bright

Wow! the clouds look sensational! well done!
one of the other guys might be able to tell you how to mess with it in Photoshop to get the brightness down abit ....... personally I wouldn't have a clue how to use photoshop - don't own any editing software.
the clouds are really great! good job!

Kate.

wxwax

cvancotthem wrote:

i have one more question that i cant seem to figure out is how to put a link to my smugmug page in my signature
i type it in but it does not create the link automatically
i think i need some html code but im not sure what

Have you tried putting in front of the link. And then [*/url] after it? (Don't use the asterisk, I put it there so the code would show up.)

cvancotthem

wxwax thank you for the help now the hyperlink works woohoo

yeah kate i dont have any editing software except for microsoft paint
i think this weekend i might buy a editing program so i can spiffy up my pictures

gotta

Welcome to the board Cvan. I'm just across the mountains in Eastern Washington. Nice pictures.

Regards, Eric

willow

The sky colour is stunning

ian408

Hi Chase and welcome!

Both shots are great. The second has some nice contrast to it.

Not sure what your situation is but there's a photo editing package that is
pretty good called theGimp. It's free but the learning curve is steep.
There are books available. For example; O'Reilly (they are big into computer
books) has a small pocket sized book you can probably find at a good technical
bookstore. Try http://www.gimp.org/windows/ for more information. If you
happen to be running Linux already, it should be installed.

I have to preface this by saying I haven't used the windows version. Just the
Linux one. It does most of what Photoshop can do.

Good luck!

Ian

cvancotthem

thank you a bunch ian
the program is free and it has so many features
im having a great time learning how to spiffy up my pictures and its just fun to fool around with them, changing the colors and such

thanks again
chase

Lonebear00

Great shot
There are a bunch of software on the market to edit software and alot are very expensive. But there are some you can play with. You can go to www.cnet.com and search in downloads for image editing. Some are free some are just trials but you can have some fun with them.
Keep up the great work