Photo Talk

My groovy new tripod is already getting a workout. I think the first thing they always recommend for taking better pictures is use a tripod. I get it now.

In other related news, I made the sad discovery that my old version of Photoshop won't install on my new Vista computer. Damn. But really it's OK because the only thing I ever figured out how to do in Photoshop was remove blemishes. I know it does plenty more but nothing I ever seemed to need.

I've used Picasa for years as a photo organizer and a lightweight editor. It's a great (free!) program and every new release has had truly useful improvements. I especially like the current version's photo collage features. I haven't found anything better for organizing and tagging my zillions of photos. But what Picasa doesn't do is resize things. Since I like to shoot my photos in maximum quality, I often need to make them smaller to get them up on the web, including here on the blog. Photoshop does this, along with 50,000 other things, but since it wouldn't install on my new computer, I was stuck.

I googled free Photoshop alternatives and came across my new love, Photoscape. It does everything I ever needed Photoshop to do, but much more intuitively. I actually have a better understanding of what I'm doing when I adjust my photos, rather than just clicking buttons and hoping for the best. And I whipped out a new blog header in a snap, so if you're reading me in an RSS reader, please hop over to the blog and see what you think. I am absolutely delighted with this find and wanted to share it with you.

Thanks to Colin for the lovely lilies!