PHOTOGRAPHY AND PHOTO EDITING RESOURCES
The internet is awash with great resources for photography and photo editing. Here are just a few that you may find useful.
PHOTO TAKING
Photography Online – videos on various aspects of taking photos and also on wider photographic topics.
Mark Denney, Nigel Danson and Thomas Heaton – videos on landscape photography.
The Photographic Eye – videos on composition and artistry plus overviews of the works of some famous photographers.
Simon d’Entremont – excellent videos on just about every aspect of taking and editing photos, especially wildlife.
DEPTH OF FIELD (DoF) RESOURCES
Paulo Renato’s Depth of Field Calculator Spreadsheet – a spreadsheet that allows you to calculate DoF and produce graphs of how DoF varies with f number, focal length and distance to subject.
Jonathan Sachs’s DoF Calculator – An excellent DoF calculator with a graphical interface with versions for Windows PCs. It has modes that cater for focus stacking and macro photography (where the normal Depth of Field formulae break down).
Search Google Playstore and Apple AppStore for other DoF phone apps including the excellent PhotoPills, below, which includes a DoF calculator amongst its many other tools.
ASTRONOMICAL PHOTOGRAPHY AIDS
PhotoPills – an amazing phone app available for Android and Apple phones that allows planning of photos to capture sunrises, sunsets, moonrises, moonsets, meteor showers, the Milky Way. It also has tools to calculate depth of field and field of view and also to help visualise how big your target (the moon, say) will be in your FoV compared with say a target building such as a lighthouse. The website also features large numbers of written guides on how to use the App for various purposes.
The Photopills YouTube channel – a tremendous resource with videos on how to use Photopills to plan astronomical photos.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris – another excellent resource for planning astronomical photos, it’s also used for landscape photography.
PHOTO EDITING TUTORIALS
Although most of the tutorials listed below are aimed at Photoshop, the principles involved will be applicable across most other photo editing software.
Master Lightroom Classic in 7 Days by Phlearn – free course on learning to use Lightroom Classic.
Mastering Lightroom Classic by Anthony Morganti – free, in-depth course on Lightroom Classic.
30 Days of Photoshop by Phlearn – highly recommended free course on learning to use Photoshop.
Photoshop Training Channel – comprehensive free Photoshop tutorials.
PixImperfect – more comprehensive free Photoshop tutorials.
Photoshop Café – yet more comprehensive free Photoshop tutorials.
PHOTO EDITING SPFTWARE
Photoshop is not the only option. There are many other excellent photo editors out there, some of them free and some of them only costing a few tens of pounds.
PHOTO EDITORS TO CONSIDER BUYING
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom available via various monthly subscription plans, with varying amounts of Adobe cloud storage.
Adobe Photoshop Elements – a cut-down version of Photoshop, available to buy rather than on subscription.
Elements+ – a low cost add-on for Photoshop Elements that adds a host of extra features and functionality to Elements.
Corel Paintshop Pro, Paintshop Pro Ultimate and Aftershot Pro (RAW editor).
Serif Affinity Photo.
ON1 Photo RAW.
Exposure X7.
DXO Photolab
DXO Pure RAW
DXO Nik Collection
EDITORS THAT ARE FREE TO DOWNLOAD
RAW Therapee – comprehensive RAW editor in which you can even choose between several different de-mosaicing algorithms.
The GIMP – very comprehensive free photo editor.
Paint.net.
Picture Window Pro.
ONLINE EDITORS THAT ARE FREE TO USE
Photopea – online editor with an interface that’s uncannily similar to Photoshop.
Pixlr – another online editor.
THE DARKROOM
The club has a fully-equipped darkroom with a Durst M605 enlarger for the use of club members at Northfields Community Centre.
Download the Durst M605 Operating Manual – durst_m605_operating_manual.pdf