I’m in a techie mood, since I’m sitting here, doped up on pain meds and listening to Tilly & The Wall at 12:49 in the morning, I decided it’s time for a techie post here at dancing foe. Not that anyone reads except myself, and I love reading my own blog. Truly.

I’ve been progressing into my current geek status since about the fourth grade, when I met my old best friend, Dew. He turned me on to the web. I remember having several Geocities sites that would make any person, sane or not, cringe and sometimes seize. Bright flashy graphics, big bold text, sparkles and fugliness was all over my pages at that time. I didn’t even use my real name for a while, I went by Izzy, thinking that no pedophile would touch me then. I also remember being amazed at those doll-creator things, I think we called them Avz short for avatars. We were hip cats or hip catz. Everything had a “z” instead of an “s”, because “z” is much cooler than it’s cousin, “s”.

I started learning to use photoshop in the sixth grade or so. I made hideous graphics with emo song lyrics on them thinking I was being deep or insightful about the world. I didn’t know jack. I took some pictures, on occasion but didn’t start really being interested in photography for another year. I still couldn’t take a good photograph to save my life until a few months ago, and even now I’m not so sure.

I use Photoshop as my digital darkroom and I know all the cheater’s ways to making an okay photo look professional. I know more tricks and shortcuts than my father, though he has taught me a few useful things about the Curves tool, and of course, the technical aspect of photography.

I’ve learned, through trial and many many errors, never to delete the original. You probably will one day want that original untouched photo for some strange reason. I even keep the embarassing, the underexposed, the blurry, and the old, just to see how far I’ve come. I also know to ALWAYS duplicate your background layer in Photoshop before doing anything to the photograph. I always save a .PSD of the corrected photo, in the full size before I resize it and save it as a high-quality JPEG to upload to Flickr or similar sites.

I’ve learned how to use the Smart Sharpen tool, and I thank God for that every day. If you don’t have the best camera, and you want crisp, clean shots, learning to use this tool is so important.

The next greatest photoshop tool is of course, the Xurves tool. I used to use Levels, and do this whole long drawn out process to change the exposure the photo, but now I eyeball it. It isn’t a perfect method and sometimes I go too far, but I usually do a good job of adjusting it. I like darker, richer, shadows, and light highlights, and it isn’t always realistic, but it looks better than the original.

I also love the Selective Color tool. I learned how to use this effectively this year, and have had great results. I can brighten one color without affecting another, and I use it a lot to get rid of the unwanted red cheeks in faces and make grass truly a little greener.

I do edit my photos a lot, but the way I see it is it makes me a better photographer. You could do the same things with a darkroom and your film that I do with my digital and Photoshop CS.

End of techie-ness.