February 2012 Club Meeting...

Folks,

Our February club meeting was held this afternoon at Rumores bar. It was good to see members, old & new, who had braved the bitterly cold winds to attend.

The main topic of discussion was an introduction to Creative Photography and PhotoArt. This was discussed and presented via a display of various images to illustrate the variety of options available when considering a creative approach to digital photography.

"Traditional photography has always needed tweaking in the darkroom to get the best from your images. This is an acceptable set of processes, usually involving…

Cropping to adjust the original composition.
Straightening, to adjust horizons or askew verticals.
Cloning (spotting) – to remove any distractions or blemishes.
Contrast, colour & sharpness adjustments as required.

In all cases, these alterations should be made to give the best photographic resolution possible, and should not be strong enough to make the viewer aware that any changes have been made. These subtle post processing techniques should enhance the accuracy of the original image.

Any adjustments, techniques or effects that are intentionally introduced to alter the original image to that, which could be considered a piece of digital art, alters the classification of that image to the category of 'Creative Photography or PhotoArt'.

There are many hundreds of techniques and effects you can apply to your photographic images. Paint Shop Pro comes with many tools and effects which can be used individually or in conjunction with others. The use of layers allows further blending creativity and can also be used to create composite images. There are also add-on filter sets available, or you can create your own multiple effects in PSP by recording them step by step in a script which, once recorded, gives you a one click effects button.

The world is indeed your Lobster! The amount of creativity you add to your images is very much up to your own personal outlook and art preferences. Some prefer subtle effects, whilst others like brash, in your face pop art effects. It all depends on the individual, the image or end result required.

As a club, we will be displaying our creative and photo art images in the ‘Creative Photography’ section of the forum."


This month's tutorial was the technique of 'hand tinting' using Paintshop Pro. This technique is described in a short tutorial post in the 'Tips & Techniques' section of the forum.

It was also decided that our next Field Trip would be to Villaricos to explore the marina areas and the village and shorefront. This will be on Tuesday 14th February, meeting at 11am. I will post an exact meeting point nearer the time, with probably a half-way meeting point at the Overa Hotel prior to travelling to the coast. More details to follow.

We are also awaiting the 'go-ahead' from Ken, who is monitoring the Almond blossom situation up by Saliente monastry and beyond. Once we hear that the blossom has 'popped', we/he will post on the forum, and we can either do our own thing, or arrange a mini club outing (with scrummy tapas at the local bar!).

Due to our tutorial on hand tinting, this month's photo assignment is to use either your own image(s) or download a photo(s) from Google, and use this as a base image to apply the hand tint technique. If you are downloading an image from Google, check the image is big enough to give adequate detail (something greater than 1500 pixels is best), or resize if necessary. When searching for an image you can select 'Large' as a size search option. Please post the original image plus the finished artwork in the 'Creative Photography' section of the forum.

The computer club's projector continues to be a very useful asset for club meetings, with very clear imaging. We have pre-paid for it's use up until March.

We agreed that the date of our next monthly club meeting will be Friday 2nd March 2012.

Looking forward to our next field trip(s?) and monthly assignment pics coming in... see you soon!

Rgds,
Howard