Nuts & Bolts & Tools

Tools for photo processing and website development.

This page is a collection of instructions for photography, photo processing and creating and maintaining websites.

There are an awful lot of tools out there to process photos and create and maintain websites. I go a little bit crazy trying to figure out what to use and how to use it.

Nuts & Bolts

I abhor videos showing how to do things. You have to watch the whole thing, often more than once, even if you just need one line from somewhere in the middle. I read quickly and much prefer a simple step-by-step layout that I can scan once to get the general method figured out then just go through each step in detail, without having to watch and listen to the whole thing. I have taken to writing myself crib notes.

Since I am writing them already, I decided to post them in case they could be of use to anyone else.

Tools

My camera

I like point and shoot cameras. No lenses to drop or get muddy, no fancy filters. Today there are some excellent point and shoot options that have manual controls as well. I currently use a Sony RX10 iv. It takes great pictures. Its only drawback is its weight (a little over 2 pounds). I’ve also been very happy with Nikon cameras. I only got the Sony after wearing out my Nikon P610 (at around 60,000 photos), and before that an L120. The photos on this web site are all from one of those cameras.

Photo processing tools

I use a variety of photo processing tools. The page The photo processing tools on my belt describes the tools I use and why I use them in detail.

The main program I use is the GIMP. GIMP Articles and Tutorials are here.

WordPress

I use WordPress for web sites, although I have taken classes in HTML5 and CSS3 I prefer not to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of it so I use those skills to enhance and nudge a WordPress site to be more as I envision it.

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Using Vignettes in the GIMP

Vignettes are a great tool for helping to guide the viewer’s eyes to the subject of your photos. In this post I demonstrate using vignettes in the GIMP. You can apply a vignette directly on a photo; as an overlay, by putting it on a separate layer; or apply it to the layer mask. Visually,…

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