• Layers and layer masks (alpha editing). These features let you selectively apply edits and filters to portions of the image that you control.
• Painting tools. Brushes in varying sizes and hardness. For painting masks, mostly.
• Curves. Essential. A curves adjustment tool lets you control color, color saturation, contrast, brightness, and black white points. Curves is often the only tool I use.
• Color adjustment. Hue and saturation adjustments.
• Channel mixer/B&W converter. Some way to make black and white photos.
• Filters. Blur and sharpen. You don’t need page curl or lens flare.

Without further ado, and in alphabetical order, some free apps that fit the bill:

Aviary Phoenix (Web app–All platforms)

The only web/online app in the list that supports layers and masks. “From basic image retouching to complex effects, Phoenix delivers the key features of a desktop image editor with the simplicity and accessibility of a web-based application.”

Chocoflop (Mac)

Non-destructive image editor for Mac. Possibly the only editor on this list with a worse name than GIMP. “ChocoFlop allows you to edit your photos or design stuff using Apple’s CoreImage technology. Because of this it can show real-time previews of filters and keep modifications live for as long as you want.”

Gimp (Linux/Mac/Windows)

The king of open source image editors. Available for all platforms.

Krita (Linux)

Image editor that is part of the KOffice suite for Linux.

Paint.NET (Windows)

Started life as an undergraduate design project mentored by Microsoft. “Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help,  tutorials, and plugins.”

Seashore (Mac)

“Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X’s Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing.”

Do you have a favorite free/open source photo editor? Share in the comments.

HP has very generously offered to give away one of their snazzy MediaSmart Servers—the EX490 with 1 terabyte of storage—to one lucky Photodoto reader!

This giveaway is sponsored by HP.

I haven’t used one of these but it’s an impressive bit of hardware on paper. In a few years, I wouldn’t be surprised to find new homes being sold with home media servers pre-installed—toilet, check; internet, check; media server, check.

A media server is primarily a storage device that can gather all of your photos, videos, and music and stream those files to your television, across your home network, or on the internet. Here’s a rundown of some of the things you can do with the HP MediaServer:

• Automatically backup important files on multiple PCs or Macs on your home network.
• Automatically collect, organize, and centralize your media files.
• Publish photos directly from the server to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and Snapfish.
• Share private photo albums with family and friends.
• Stream photos, music, and videos to your TVs, gaming consoles, and computers.
• Convert videos into formats that can be played on gaming consoles and mobile devices like iPhones.
• Expandable to 17 terabytes.

Find out more about the HP MediaSmart servers at HP’s website.

How to enter / Official rules

To enter: leave one comment on this blog post explaining how you would use the MediaSmart server. Include your full name and email address (email addresses are not published or shared but are required for verification and to contact the winner).

One entry per person. Entries must be received by midnight November 6, 2009 (Pacific time). One winner will be selected randomly. The winner will be announced on Photodoto.com on or around November 6, 2009.

Please subscribe to our feed or mailing list (on the sidebar)! Photodoto is filled with interesting articles for photographers from beginners to pros. Every week, we publish unique content you won’t find anywhere else.

The fine print:

Sweepstakes is open to all U.S. Citizens that are legal residents of the United States except Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories and employees of Photodoto and its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and production agencies, and their immediate families and household members are not eligible. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter as of promotion start date: October 22, 2009. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited or restricted. By entering this Sweepstakes, participants agree to be bound by these Official Rules and the decisions of Photodoto and/or its agents. Odds of winning prize depend on the number of eligible entries received.

One Winner will be randomly drawn from all eligible entries received. The Winner will receive an HP MediaSmart server model EX490 (total value: $550) shipped directly from HP or their agent. Winner is responsible for all federal, state and local taxes associated with acceptance and use of prize. Prizes are not transferable. No substitution of prizes permitted except at Photodoto’s option, including Photodoto’s right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value if advertised prize is unavailable.

Winners will be selected in a random drawing on or about November 6, 2009 from the aggregate of all eligible entries received. Awarding of prizes will be conducted by Photodoto, whose decisions are final on all matters relating to the promotion. Photodoto will notify the Winner via e-mail. If the Winner cannot be contacted within 72 hours of notification, an alternate Winner will be selected from the remaining eligible entries. Any prize notification or prize returned as undeliverable will be forfeited and awarded to an alternate Winner. Prize will be mailed to the U.S. mailing address provided by the Winner. The Winner will be required to provide a valid U.S. mailing address and phone number.

Photodoto and its promotional and advertising agencies, and all respective officers, directors, employees, representatives and agents of each, shall have no liability and shall be held harmless by Winners for any damage, loss or liability to persons or property, due in whole or part, directly or indirectly, by reason of the acceptance, possession, use or misuse of prize or participation in this promotion. Photodoto reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend part or all of this promotion should virus, bugs, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond the control of Photodoto corrupt or impair the administration, security, fairness or proper play of the promotion. Photodoto and its promotion and advertising agencies, and all respective officers, directors, employees, representatives and agents of each, are not responsible for technical, hardware, software or telephone failures of any kind, lost, interrupted or unavailable network connections, fraud, incomplete, garbled or delayed computer transmissions, whether caused by Photodoto, users, or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the promotion or by any technical or human error which may occur in the processing of submissions which may damage a user’s system or limit a participant’s ability to participate in the promotion. Photodoto reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any individual Photodoto reasonably believes to have tampered with the entry process or with the operation of the promotion, or who is found to be acting in violation of these Official Rules. This Sweepstakes is intended and limited for play in the United States and shall only be construed and evaluated according to United States law.

At one point or another, most photographers take a stab at photographing the moon.  They’ve got their digital SLR, their tripod, their timer or remote shutter release, and a bright moon in the sky.  Yet, often, the resulting photograph is an overexposed blob on a black background, a flat disc lacking in dimension, or a grey image lacking in crater detail.

Here are a handful of tips that I’ve learned in trying to capture an interesting shot of the moon.

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200), Aperture: f/5, Focal Length: 84.2 mm, ISO Speed: 50

One – Affix your camera with a telephoto lens – 300mm, at least, if you want the moon to fill the frame, though you can photograph decent moon shots with most kit lenses as well.  A 2x converter works excellently to supplement a lens, and is a very inexpensive option.

Two – Though many digital cameras have an automatic setting for night shots, you’ll capture a photograph that has far more quality if you manually set ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Start with an ISO of 100.  The moon is the light source, and is brighter to your camera than you might think, so the risk of getting a grainy shot at a higher ISO is removed.  Set the aperture at about f/11 (the higher the aperture, the less sharp the image), and exposure at 1/125. This is a “rule of thumb”, so you’ll probably fiddle around with these settings a bit. Also, set your camera to manual focus – auto focus sometimes gets confused on moon shots.  Take some shots, and tweak aperture and shutter speed as appropriate.

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000), Aperture: f/4.0, Focal Length: 200 mm, ISO Speed: 1600

Three – Long exposure is a given, since you’re photographing at night, but you might actually require less exposure than you’d think.  Somewhat UNDERexposing a shot will allow you to amp up (or, down) the contrast and curves during post-processing, which will bring forth crater detail. Also, keep in mind that the moon does move across the sky as the evening progresses, so longer exposures (longer than 1/15, approximately) will capture this movement in the form of slight blurring.

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125), Aperture: f/4, Focal Length: 29.2 mm, ISO Speed: 125

Four – Shoot various phases of the moon. The side-lighting that occurs during the moon’s various phases offers a dramatic subject for your images.  Adjust for exposure – a longer exposure will probably be required than what would be used during a full moon because, intuitively, a half or quarter-moon throws less light than a full moon.  Also, shoot the moon at various stages in the night sky – a moon closer to the horizon appears “larger” to the naked eye, and therefore to your camera’s lens, due to the magnification effect of the atmosphere combined with the curve of the Earth. Shooting earlier in the evening often also produces interesting lighting effects in the night sky, other than flat black.

I hope that these simple tips assist you in capturing the image of the moon that you’re shooting for.  Even though it’s an oft-photographed subject, the moon will forever continue to draw our interest, our eyes, and therefore, our lenses.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance):

• “Lune/Moon” by OliBac on Flickr (Licensed Creative Commons)
• “The Bird and the Moon II” by Flowery Luza on Flickr (Licensed Creative Commons)
• “Crescent Moon” by Lrargerich on Flickr (Licensed Creative Commons)

Check out the article here and share your own frugal photography tips in the comments.

The feature is easy to use and allows you to quickly add links to other Flickr members in your photos.

A management screen allows you to see which photos you are in. In addition, you can remove yourself from any photo or opt-out of the feature entirely so no one can tag you in their photos.

Read more about it on the Flickr blog…

EF85mm f/1.2L II USM

I was browsing through The Official White House Photostream on Flickr today. The photographs are excellent. Pete Souza is the Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama and Director of the White House photo office.

I noticed that the EXIF data was available for just about every photo and it contained lens information. Naturally, being a programmer/photography geek, I decided to download the EXIF data for all 1,433 photos (as of today) and find out which lenses the White House photography staff likes best. Here are the results:

Cameras

Lenses

The 1st prize winner will receive $100 plus $100 donated to the Plant with Purpose Trees Fund in the winner’s name. All winning photographs will be printed, matted, and displayed in the lobby of Rohr Hall at Point Loma Nazarene University for two weeks in December.

The theme is: Challenging Stuff. Mass consumerism is a way of life. Photos should challenge assumptions about consumerism.

I’m one of the judges along with photographers Scott Bennet and Marcus Emerson. The contest is free to enter and helps a good cause. Please check it out.

Interesting twist: they send the photos to a facility they’ve built in India. That’s how they can get a technician to scan and personally inspect/retouch each negative at such low prices. Downside: looks like it might be around 8 weeks before I see my scans (and get back my originals). But, these negatives have been sitting around since 97 so it’s not like I’m in a hurry.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Have you used ScanCafe or any other professional negative/print scanning service?

ScanCafe – Photo Scanning, Negative Scanning, Slide Scanning, Photo Restoration

The main point of the survey was to find out how you all are selling your photos online. The biggest group (18%) sell their photos on their own websites. I do this myself. You get to keep all of the profit but it’s the most work of all of the options. That’s the main reason I’ve been thinking of joining the second largest group (11%): ImageKind users.

ImageKind lets you keep most of your profit over their base prices. Of course, they squirrel away some profit for themselves in the base price itself and they take 5% of any amount that is 100% or more above the base price (that’s a complicated sentence—they explain it better in their FAQ). I don’t begrudge them making a profit on their service. They seem to take almost all of the drudgery out of selling your work. They also provide a ready audience for you. Sort of a double-edged sword though since they also sell so many other photographers right next to you. Those of you who have used ImageKind, do you recommend their service?

Many of you sell on microstock (iStockphoto and their ilk, 8%). Not surprising.

Smugmug comes in at 8% as well. I like the idea of Smugmug. I’m a fan. I’ve done their free trial. But for reasons I can’t really put my finger on, I’ve never signed up for service. I guess I like Flickr better for sharing and the selling part of Smugmug didn’t impress me the last time I took a look.

Shutterfly has a service for professional photographers. They charge an annual fee ($99 or $199 for more space) and take 15% of the profit. But their base prices are lower than ImageKind’s. Probably works out about the same.

Zazzle and CafePress came in near the bottom.

I expected Zenfolio to have more users (3%). It’s bona fide turnkey photography hosting, after all. One possibility: I couldn’t find Zenfolio’s base prices listed on their website. Anybody want to share why they passed on Zenfolio?

Finally, in the “other” category we had: RedBubble, Nuzart, Etsy, and Lulu.