Rapturous! Inspirational & Interesting Photography

I enjoy Photoshop, but it is pricey, and I am learning that GIMP is a very powerful alternative (not to mention it makes me think of the Pulp Fiction movie = “bring out the gimp” LOL).

Six Revisions has brought out a very cool list of Photoshop alternatives for those of us of the much-interest-little-budget variety.

Personally, I have used Paint.Net, and GIMP. Paint.Net has been handy on low-spec machines, if I just want to resize or crop. GIMP is MUCH more powerful, and even has features that I wish they would incorporate into Photoshop (which I use at work).

If you do not wish to install software (and sometimes at someone else’s PC, or if you are at the office, and have limited admin rights, etc), you can try  LifeClever’s 10 Free Web-Based Alternatives to Photoshop. Personally, I only have used Piknik, because it integrates easily with Flickr.

If you know of any that are not included in these lists, please let me know, and perhaps we can get an extensive list going here.

I had trouble deciding which one to submit today so I submitted two!

The one to the immediate left I am calling “Concrete Stairway to Heaven.” I have deliberately overexposed this a little to see if I could make it a bit more interesting… I have been reading up on techniques where overexposure is used deliberately, so I tried my hand at it here. There is actually a window up there with shutters!

I was about 2cm off including a cigarette butt in the photo – but that would have ruined the ‘heaven’ effect!

My other shot is also overexposed deliberately.

It is a concrete drain, which I then used the tutorial at DPS to fiddle with duotones to see if that makes it more appealing.

I think the additional colour works well, and adds a funkiness to the picture that wasn’t there as a straight black and white or colour image.

Do you have any favourite images from Day 56 of the 2009 Photo Challenge? Check out Flickr photos with the 200challenge and concrete tags.

The building materials has been a challenging topic so far.

I haven’t come across some of the materials – concrete seems to be the most prolific in the areas that I frequent in Singapore!

I was going to do a Coke machine, and then I saw these doors!

This took a while to upload as I have been busy – and accidentally deleted the photo and had to go back and take it.

I almost didn’t have to do any processing on this – the day has been dreary and there was not a lot of colour in the original.

This is one of my favourite flowers and seems like a really nice way to start off the new year in terms of photo appreciation – love the negative-style effect on this! Bright and cheery!

Click through to the Flickr page on the above image to read how the photographer has done this with an infrared lens and some Photoshopping – really great!

This is one of mine that is in Flickr’s Explore – photoshopped, but I’m pretty pleased with it!

It’s amazing what people can do with Photoshop!