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:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian

"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James

:: Saturday, June 11, 2005 ::

Microsoft Acrylic

Microsoft is on the verge of launching a new graphics software program called Acrylic that would ostensibly compete with Adobe Photoshop, the penultimate photo editing software used by the pros. The Techgurus review the Beta version and are unimpressed but some commenters take issue suggesting the reviewer doesn't understand the Acrylic program. Whatever the case, I can't imagine anyone - even Bill Gates - seriously competing with Photoshop at this stage of the game.

My thoughts on Adobe Photoshop:

Photoshop is an insanely great piece of graphics software. If you are going to work with digital photographs in any capacity, whether professionally or just as a hobby, you simply must have Photoshop on your computer. Photoshop is to the digital camera what gasoline is to the internal combustion engine - indispensible. Although the learning curve may be a little steeper than is true for many computer programs, once learned, Photoshop gives the photographer tools that can only be considered magical. But don't be intimidated, there are many good quick-start books and community colleges offer introduction courses to Photoshop.

Here are a few quick digital photo tips: A) When purchasing a digital camera, buy as much megapixel as you can afford. The megapixel count on your camera determines the resolution of your photos so the more the merrier; with digital photography, resolution is everything. At this point in the product cycle, I wouldn't buy a camera with less than five megapixels and I'd probably want 6-8 (in the compact camera catagory). B) Shoot your images in the highest resolution possible. Although lower resolution will give you more frames on your memory card, the lower resolutions severely limit Photoshop's capabilities because there is less information for Photoshop to work with. C) New versions of Photoshop are pricey; look for older, unregistered versions on Ebay. Try not to buy any version under Ver. 7 (version seven has the amazing Healing Brush). D) Purchase the largest memory card for your camera that you can afford because high-res digital images require a lot of flash memory. Go for a BIG one-gig card - you'll need it.

Here's another Max photo for Photo-Fun Saturday. It's a little job I quickly manipulated in Photoshop. My original photo (top) was contrasty due to the high angle of the sun so I just used the anomaly to my advantage (bottom):



Try to accomplish that in a darkroom.

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:: Max 11:43 AM [+] ::
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