Photography

Since buying my first dital SLR camera this past summer, I have become more and more interested in photography - composition, lighting, editing, etc.  Along with that, I have plans to get my scrapbook caught up (I think I am something like 3 or 4 years behinds :-/).  So I have joined a few Meetup groups - some for scrapbooking, some for photography, even one for running.  Already, without going to any meet-ups, I have learned a few new things about photography composition, and I'm so excited to be able to go to a couple of meet-ups to see what else I can learn. 

Kalin and I have also taken an interest in Adobe Photoshop.  We have been watching videos on how to use all the different functions and how to create amazing pictures and layouts and stuff.  I really want to just jump in and start playing with stuff to see how everything works, but I know I will get more out of it if I watch the videos and then go play with it, because then I at least have an idea of what icon does what to my picture.

Part of photoshop is a program called Camera Raw.  When we first tried to use it, we kept getting an error message, and we just couldn't figure out what the problem was.  After asking Kalin's brother (who uses photoshop for college), we were informed that Camera Raw can only open "RAW" images from my camera - it doesn't work on jpeg images.  So I figured out how to get my camera to take RAW images, and now it works! I have come to the realization that if I want to be able to get the most of my pictures, I should be taking them in RAW and jpeg format (which, luckily, my camera does).  The problem with RAW images is that they take up A LOT of space on a memory card.  Lucky for me, I got a rather large compact flash card to go with my camera, so I have a bit more space for those RAW images. 

If anyone reading this has any tips or tricks for me, I would LOVE to hear them!  Anything about photography, photoshop, etc would be much appreciated! Thanks! :D