The Photoshop plug-ins which are available can help perform tasks much faster and more efficiently than performing these tasks by hand. The 3D plug-ins are used to create 3D images and type very quickly and elegantly. The color management Photoshop plug-ins can create new colors to correspond to the printer that you are using, or the monitor that you are using to create your graphics. The digital asset management plug-ins are used to organize all of the digital images that you have created so that finding the correct image is much easier than without it. The photographic ones give many different professional lens techniques that you can apply to any picture to create amazing effects. The basic idea is to either copy the Background Layer and make any adjustment directly to it (color adjustments, sharpening, bluring, contrast, exposure, etc.) or make that alteration in an adjustment layer. Once you’ve made the adjusted layer (either using a duplicated layer or a true adjustment layer) then Go Overboard!! I mean it, allow yourself to go way sharp, way blurry, way magenta, way saturated, whatever you’re doing, do it more than needed.

- PicaJet- A powerful but still affordable picture management and image database program, recommended for easily cataloging and searching your digital photo catalogue. PicaJet automatically imports the metadata of your photographs and indexes your pictures accordingly. The real attraction of PicaJet for digital photographers is its genuine ease of use. Picajet will assign each picture to each appropriate available category, making locating your digital photos from a hue data bank of thousands of photographs possible and without fuss. PicaJet is an ideal program for ease of printing as it automatically arranges on the assigned paper and selects the most appropriate printing options. Incredibly PicaJet also reads and plays back various video formats. Unlike most other digital photograph organizers PicaJet even allows for privacy of those personal photos or pictures you would rather not share. Like Photoshop Picajet is so rich in functions it is impossible to mention every incredible feature in just these few words. PicaJet is perhaps the best value for money of available digital picture management program.

In earlier times, you took your snapshots with your trusty old Brownie, removed the film cartridge and dropped it off at the drug store for developing. After about a week, you picked up your prints. What you got was exactly what the film was exposed to. No cropping, no sharpening, brightness or contrast adjustments were available unless you had your own film processing and print studio. With the onset of digital photography, it has become possible for everyone to learn and perform successful photo editing. There exists a plethora of digital photography software that allow differing levels of image manipulation. With a decent digital camera, a computer with a quality printer, and one of the many versions of photo editing software, you can produce stunning photographs. You can crop for closer views of your intended subject, darken or lighten the exposure, adjust the contrast, sharpen the image, change it to black and white, sepia, or grayscale. Add a good scanner and you have the ability to edit your old standard photographs. That old faded photo of you as a child can be brought back to life with a few clicks of your mouse. With the right software, you can place objects from one photograph into another. Create a montage of any person containing their pictures from birth to present. That beautiful old Ford you took a picture of at the cruise-in brings back fond memories?

When it comes to exporting its images, Photoshop allows seamless program shifts among other Adobe software used in image editing, authoring and animation such as Adobe Illustrator, ImageReady and After Effects. Photoshop files (.PSD or Photoshop document format) may be manipulated to produce special effects such as adding textures and changing backgrounds. Non-linear editing is also a breeze. Another advantage of Photoshop is that it can work with several color models such as RGB, CMYK, Lab, Bitmap, Duotone and Grayscale. This allows any user a lot of flexibility in terms of image editing, giving him the power to play with every type of photo image there is. The newest version of Photoshop is v. 10, also known as CS3. It’s integrated with Adobe Creative Suite, hence the ‘CS’. The most popular, though is the CS2 which was made available in 2005. It has successfully integrated new tools and former plugins like color replacement, warping and multiple-layer select.

If you think that you will be using a lot of photoshop and will are a hobbiest with the photoshop, then photoshop elements will be right for you. Save you money up and get it because it has more options than the Photoshop CS has. Some of those options include: Lens Blur Filter, Vanishing Point Tool, Pen tool and paths palette, Some adjustment layers (curves, color balance, selective color, channel mixer), Editing History Log, Text on a path, advanced text formatting, Advanced Layer Style manipulation, Advanced Color Management, Advanced Web features and ImageReady (rollovers, slicing), Customizable tool presets, keyboard shortcuts, and menus. In the features and tools that are shared, the Photoshop version usually offers more advanced options for fine tuning and control.

The Eyedropper tool (the icon in the Toolbar) is used to sample a color from an image to use this color further. It’s practical as it facilitates color selection, for example, an appropriate color for the skin or the sky. Tip: When you pick a color with the Eyedropper tool, it appears as the foreground color in the Toolbar. If you want to pick a color for the background hold the ALT-key while selecting the color with the Eyedropper tool. Below you see the foreground/background palette of the Toolbar.

You can do a lot with filters, they can change the mood or tone of a photo, or they can add a completely different effect altogether. As you work with your photo you can add a yellow filter, or a black and white filter or even a sepia filter. What the sepia does is it will actually create a warmer mood for the picture by making the colors more warm. Most, if not all, photo editing program contain filter effects. If you dont have photo editing of your own, you can always try a free program such as Picasa.

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