Postcards on my blog?

My sister Sue was browsing through my latest blog entries and commented that my photos were suspiciously like postcards. Postcards?? Postcards!!!??? I am sure she meant it as a compliment.

Well, I do admit that about half a dozen pictures in my blog don't belong to me but credit has been given to its rightful owners. But most definitely all the others photos are NOT postcards scanned and inserted.

All these were taken by me with my trusty little Casio 10 megapixel EX-Z200 digital camera. I used to dabble in photography with my Nikons and Canons but that was in the days of celluloid films. Today I just carry as small a camera as possible which is wonderful for traveling.

On the other hand, I do readily admit that all my pictures are doctored, or in today's terminology, photoshopped.

And why not? It's not cheating or deception. There's a whole host of programs out there you can use to enhance, embellish and correct all your mistakes prior to letting the whole world look at your pictures. I'd rather look at photos that are nice and presentable than to look at boring raw footage.

I've been using Photoshop since it was called Photoshop ver. 3 back in the 1980's. And I can tell you that all major magazines of supermodels from Sports Illustrated to Vogue have been photoshopped. In the old days it was called airbrushing.

Enhancing your photos not only gives you the satisfaction of perfecting your lousy shots but also, I am sure, reduces the pain for those you present it to for viewing.

For example, some of the pictures from my last couple of postings against the original raw digital photos....

Original ------------------------ Photoshop

Original -------------------------------Photoshop


Original ------------------------Photoshop

Some of the obvious mistakes we amateur photographers all make are capturing too much details, buildings that are tilted and not vertical and the horizon not being leveled. These are very common mistakes which with a little manipulation can make the picture so much better.

So there, Sue, definitely no postcards here. But with a little photoshop magic you can make your pictures to look like postcards.