The poor man's Photoshop No.2

click photo to enlarge
Four years ago* I posted a piece entitled "The poor man's Photoshop". That particular post has always been one that receives a lot of hits, with the visitor invariably arriving through a search engine query. However, most of the people who alight on my page that describes a shot of a book cover taken through "Flemish" frosted glass quickly move on. They've clearly been looking for a cheap or no-cost alternative to Photoshop, the heavyweight photo-processing software of choice of enthusiast and professional photographers. Some stay and look at the image and read the text on my page, but mostly they don't. I suppose I ought to add to the page a link to GIMPshop, a version of GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) that has been modified by the addition of a Photoshop-like interface. Or perhaps anyone searching for a cheap digital image editing program would benefit from knowing about Gizmo's Freeware, and particularly his page describing and linking to a selection of such programmes - Best Free Digital Image Editor. However, it's not my practice to amend an entry after I've posted it, so today I'm doing the next best thing by giving this post the same title (except designating it number 2), and featuring those useful sources. I hope this proves helpful to someone.

In fact, the subject of today's photograph warrants the title I've given it anyway. It shows me with the LX3 reflected in the textured glass of a door. Outside it is raining, and the door is giving a distorted reflection of not only me, but also the door and room behind. I liked the indistinct nature of this image and the way the colours of my clothes made the feather-like designs in the glass appear as though they formed part of my shape. It certainly has something of the feel of the sort of Photoshoppery that I don't indulge in but that many like, though in this instance there has been no computer manipulation at all.

* The opening sentence of this piece brought me up with a start. Have I really been posting images and rambling on for so long? It's maybe time for a change.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.66EV
Image Stabilisation: On