U3A Digital Photo Group – 27th November Meeting Notes Page 1 of 5

Introduction We had a good attendance on Monday (especially considering the weather) and it was quite a lively session, covering 3 main areas: - The Imaginative Image manipulation “exercise” on the “Stock Image” sent to you with last month’s Notes - The competition for fireworks images - Creating a Christmas (or other) greetings card Imaginatively editing a “Stock Image” This “exercise” was about using your editing software to produce quite different results to the original shot. This was a good opportunity for both the editing (or “Post Processing” as it is often called) experts and for those with little experience of editing images to just “ignore the rule book” and produce something totally striking, interesting or just plain “weird” – and we certainly had a few of the latter submitted ☺. The “Stock Image” was the funerary mask of Brunelleschi (1446) in the Duomo museum in Florence, and 6 members sent in a total of 13 edited images and 3 video clips(!) . These were displayed on the screen (often to lots of laughter, comments, and applause!) , and the submitters then outlined which software they had used and how they had achieved their results. The verbal outlines were brief, but most of the submitted images, and especially the videos, must actually have taken far longer, and involved a great deal of effort, to produce – and so many thanks to the submitters for all the work they put in, and for the education and entertainment that they provided to the other members. Two of the submissions will also form part of the PowerPoint presentation at the Dec U3A Monthly meeting at the Winston Churchill Hall (WCH) – see the “Competition” section below for an explanation. In the context of the software used, it appears to have been mainly a mixture of &/or Photoshop Elements, FastStone and IrfanView – the last (and new, to the rest of us) having been recommended by Adele and she used that for image-manipulation images that she submitted for this meeting. The last 3 are free to download and if you would like to know more about both free and paid-for software that could be useful, then go to the Appendix at the end of this email where there is a short list of both free and purchasable and manipulation software downloads that we know that members do, or could, use. Creating Christmas cards using software Alan did something similar at last November’s meeting and so I thought we would have another shot at the subject from slightly different angles – so I “borrowed” his presentation (with his kind help and permission, of course!), modified it somewhat (as attached) and then extrapolated it (but only with moderate success, it has to be said, due to many unrelated time-constraints) to cover creating cards, which I think he originally did in MS WORD, but using other software. However, I changed things around a bit and pointed out that you do need to decide beforehand on the s/w (be-it your normal photo s/w package, or a prebuilt, and purchased, commercial package of which I listed some examples) or by other means (like using an on-line printing service ) that you will use to create a card because that choice determines a lot of what you can, or cannot do, in the creation process – a copy of that short presentation is attached. I then went on to show you could create a card in PhotoShop Elements (Version 11 ), and then roughly the same thing again in the “Draw” programme within the package LibreOffice (which can be downloaded here: https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/dl/win- x86_64/5.3.7/en-GB/LibreOffice_5.3.7_Win_x64.msi ) U3A Digital Photo Group – 27th November Meeting Notes Page 2 of 5 It seemed a bit hard-going in Elements to me, but I think showed how you can: - Create a basic A4 page for an eventual folding into an A6-size 4-page card, - Open a number of individual Christmas images files (mainly downloaded from the internet) as additional pages within Elements. - Crop, rotate (where necessary) and then move the images onto the template page where they become individual “layers” (that taught me a lot more about working with layers than I ever knew before – so could be very useful in the long-term!), - Adjust the locations and sizes of each image in their intended positions on the page, and add text boxes where appropriate. That took some time to set up before the meeting and then (not entirely successfully because of a shortage of time – and skill ) to show how I had done it. I then showed, again rather roughly, how you could basically recreate the same card in LibreOffice Draw in approximately ¼ of the overall time, and with much less work involved! It’s actually just a matter of creating the template page and then inserting, re-sizing (and sometimes changing the orientation of) each image (I used the same ones as before) and then simply dragging it to the required position! ☺ Overall, seems a very quick and easy to have a first shot at card creation, and then, maybe you can try something more complex. The day’s Competition – “Fireworks” The previously-announced Competition theme was “Fireworks”, but unfortunately we only had a total of 6 entries from 2 members – probably because there were not many local displays this year and the weather was generally pretty awful around the beginning of November. Anyway, we did have a Vote and the Winners were: - 1st Susan Madigan - 2nd Margaret Mayes However, as we aim to submit 4 images for each U3A monthly meeting at the WCH, it was suggested and agreed that 2 of the Image Manipulation submissions should also be included – so we reviewed those again and then had another vote, and the 2 Winners this time were: - 1st Adele Franklin - 2nd Brian Hillier NB: regrettably, we had to exclude the two (very good!) image manipulation videos from the voting as it was felt that, although PowerPoint presentations can include such clips, it would be premature to ask the presentation preparation team to include them at such short notice and without their formal agreement. Therefore the 4 images in question will be sent to the new email address ([email protected] )- giving the names of the Winners, the Competition name, and the places achieved. On this occasion I already have the image files here and so I will submit them myself – and thus no-else needs to bother to do that! What should we cover in meetings in the future? We had a very short discussion on future activities, and so this a reminder for the:

U3A Digital Photo Group – 27th November Meeting Notes Page 3 of 5 December Meeting and Competition – NB: MONDAY 18 th DEC (not the 25 th !) Theme (well, sort of!): As usual we will make this a more social event with: - Everyone try to bring some finger food and soft drinks (and a few paper plates, plastic knives/forks/cups etc., would not go amiss!) – please email me with what you think you are likely to bring so we know if we might be getting too much of something but not enough of something else! - A “ What is it? ” photo image quiz. Please take shots of “everyday” or other objects from unusual angles &/or lighting &/or very close-up, and make it as difficult as possible for people viewing the images to guess what they actually are - and then send the image files to me at any time before Monday 11 th Dec. Competition: “Make a Xmas Card” Like the competition last December, this will be for you to make an Xmas card to bring along in printed form to exchange with someone else – hopefully the ad-hoc presentation that I gave (see above) will help a few people who have not done this before. NB: there are on “Making Greetings Cards” on the Salisbury Group website http://salisburyu3a.org.uk/U3ADI/DigPhoto38.html . Unfortunately when I tried them out, I didn’t actually find those to be much help as they appear to be based around quite early versions of PhotoShop Elements and some of the instructions did not match to well with Version 11 that I was using. January Meeting Theme: “Night shooting” Competition: Christmas images, with an emphasis on “night shooting” to get you in the frame of mind for the January theme. February Meeting: Theme: High Dynamic Range (HDR), and other image manipulation techniques such as “diffusion, “levels” & so on Competition: TBD – but possibly “Night shooting” with the emphasis on subjects other than Christmas! Reminder: Diary Dates – Monthly meetings – the 4th Monday of each month (except Dec this year, & 2-3 months in 2018 – see below!) 2017 - Dec 18. 2018 - Jan 22, Feb 26, March 26, April 23, May 21? , June 25, Jul 23, (Aug – no mtg), Sept 24, Oct 22, Nov 26, Dec 17. As mentioned in the October Notes, there is an issue about the May 2018 meeting because the normal date is a Bank Holiday – this has yet to be resolved. All the best and see you on MONDAY 18 th December ! John Allen And on behalf of the other members of the Steering Committee: Judy Peddie, Adele Franklin, Len Fenton, Jothy Rainbow PS: we would welcome anyone else who would like to join the Committee because it’s aim is to take a “collective” approach to what we do, and how we do it – so please do consider helping us ------

U3A Digital Photo Group – 27th November Meeting Notes Page 4 of 5 Appendix – Useful Free and Paid-for software for Image editing, manipulation and similar tasks This is a list of software that members use, and is either free to download and use or else has to be bought. Free Software: (NB: some sites, such as Faststone & IrfanView, ask for voluntary donations to help them cover costs, and others may try to persuade you to sign up for paid-for versions of their software – but that’s not necessary in order to use the free versions that you can download) . Here are some we can suggest, and recommend (sometimes with reservations) : “FastStone Image Viewer” This can be downloaded from here: http://www.faststone.org/index.htm and a Tutorial can be found here: http://www.faststonesoft.net/DN/FSIV_Tutorial.pdf Faststone is very, very good and very easy to get to grips with, but we have found one significant thing that it can’t do – i.e. correcting converging perspectives on architectural shots (so see Corel “Aftershot 3” below) . Many members now use it for a lot of tasks, as do I for presentations of images at some monthly meetings. “IrfanView” This is available from http://www.irfanview.com/ . I don’t know anything about it, but I’d guess that Adele might be able to give some guidance as to how to use it and what it can/can’t do, and it obviously can be made to work very well - as proven by Adele’s manipulated images seen on the day! Corel “Aftershot 3” Aftershot 3 can be downloaded from here: https://www.ephotozine.com/newsletter/free-offer-- getraw- photo-editor-aftershot-3---100--free-_895 NB: It will only install on “64 bit” (& not 32 bit) PC operating systems, but most recent PC’s will have that anyway. It is more of an image “batch processing” tool (rather like Adobe “Lightroom” for those who know it), and I have used it with one of the large range of free auxiliary “plugin” add-on programmes called “zPerspector” to provide quite wildly change image perspectives (e.g. correcting “converging verticals”) The AfterShot plugins are here: http://www.aftershotpro.com/en/plugins/ Whilst we would not suggest this programme for everyday use (where FastStone is much more suitable and easier to use) it can be very useful for certain image manipulation tasks. File saving in AS3 can also be rather “challenging” but more info on that can be found here. https://support.corel.com/hc/en-us/articles/216434287-AfterShot-Pro-2-Missing-Save-As-Menu- Option “Topaz Studio” Len has recommended this for tasks such as High Dynamic Range (HDR ) image manipulation – although it can do a lot more than that. The programme installer for Topaz Studio can be downloaded from https://web.topazlabs.com/downloads/ , but that is not the actual programme. So, you then run the installer to download and install the programme itself – NB: this is a large (300 Mb +) download and will take some time if you have a slow broadband speed! You then need to create a Topaz account on their site, and then “log in” to the programme itself, load up an image and play with it – lots of options for adjustments, including HDR effects. U3A Digital Photo Group – 27th November Meeting Notes Page 5 of 5 Warning: I would only work on a copy of an image to start with as, as yet, I have not yet found a way to use the “Save as” command to save it under a different file name (maybe Len has more info on that since he has used the programme before?) Paid-for Software There are many such programmes available, but here are some that members use. Adobe “PhotoShop Elements” This is probably one of the most widely-used (including by members) consumer photo-editing software, and the current version is “PhotoShop Elements 2018”, but almost any earlier version from around Version 10 or 11 onwards is perfectly adequate for most tasks The latest version is around £80, but there are often special offers on sites like Amazon which can reduce the price substantially, and the earlier versions can sometimes be picked up for a lot less. You can also get it “bundled” with the video editing Adobe “Premier Elements” programme, and the bundles are generally cheaper overall than buying the 2 programmes separately. Note: there are two other families of Photoshop programmes: - The original “Photoshop” series which was one of the most long-running (& expensive = quite a few 100s of £’s) professional packages but is now discontinued and replaced by the one below. However it can be picked up “used” (still a lot of money!), and I understand that some members do use earlier versions. - The new “Photoshop Creative Cloud” (“PhotoShop CC”) “almost cloud-based” software “system” which is on an annual licence subscription basis only and costs around £100/year - currently I don’t know of anyone using that. Serif “” This is from a well-known and respected photo-software company and is the latest in a long- established series. It can be downloaded from the Serif website https://affinity.serif.com/en- gb/photo/ and currently costs £48.99 – Len is a long-time user of Serif software and knows quite a bit about Affinity Photo because he was (I think) part of the Beta trials assessment team! Corel “PaintShop Pro 2018” This is the current evolution of the long-established “PaintShop” series of programmes, and also costs £48.99 (but £34.99 as an Upgrade if you already have an earlier version) as a download from here https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/standard/?sourceid=psp10-xx- ppc_brkws&x- vehicle=ppc_brkws&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImeb6993h1wIV47ztCh0igguvEAAYASAAEgK7JvD_Bw E I know a few members have used earlier versions but I don’t think many (any?) are using the latest version.