I feel like the stubborn mule who has to get its head walloped just to get its attention.

For some reason, when photography went digital, I adopted the belief that what the camera saw was absolute:  what the lens saw was recorded digitally and the end product was the finished photo.  Post-processing?  Please.  I held the belief that post-processing, through the use of software like Adobe PhotoShop, was somehow “cheating,” and thus wasn’t “authentic” photography.

Boy, was I wrong.  Thanks to some wiser and more experienced digital photographers, I was able to see the error of my ways.  The light came on (pun intended) when it was pointed out to me that developing my own black-and-white prints from film was nothing more than post-processing.  Why should using computer technology be any different?

As one who has made a career in the computer industry, all of a sudden it seemed like a natural fit.  Fortunately, Adobe makes available for 30 days a nifty program called Lightroom. Thanks to the folks at MacUpdate, I was alerted to a new version of this program and decided to check it out.

Four days into my 30 day trial, I went to Adobe’s site and purchased the product!

And that’s not all.  I also learned of a program called easyHDR that includes a Lightroom plug-in.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, which is a method of combining two differently exposed shots of the same subject into one, allowing a finer resolution of highlights and shadows.  It’s a bit more complex than that, but now all of a sudden I have a quiver of computer tools at my disposal to enhance and correct the shots I take.

I have been going through photos I’ve taken over the past few years, and with just some minor tweaks, have turned some “good” shots into pictures that “pop!”  I may not be ready to enter any photo contests, but I’m finding out there’s a lot more to digital photography than just taking the picture!