The Digital Economy Bill is expected to become law within 6 weeks. This Bill, sponsored by Lord Mandelson, an unelected Minister, will have a fundamental affect on your freedoms as a photographer.

A) Your automatic right to copyright of your own photographs will no longer exist.

Take a look at the Bill NOW. The freedom-snatching detail hidden in this Bill has been sneaked in by the ever-devious Mandelson.

Another branch of the UK Government, The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is also proposing swinging restrictions on your freedom to take photographs in public places

B) You will no longer be free to photograph in public places

Write to your MP and object while there is still time left.

For more information go to these websites. It is not too late to object but you MUST ACT NOW!

I have looked more closely at the details of these proposals in my latest post here:

Photographers to lose copyright & right to photograph in public places

Copyright Action & Consensual Photography in Public

Royal Photographic Society’s view

Digital Economy Bill

Take a careful look at this photograph. You are looking at the sort of behaviour that put the Great in Britain. Yes, you’ve got it – a fine example of British lunacy. The sort of harmless fun we were once able to enjoy before the dead hand of European edicts, Health and Safety regulators and other interfering busy-bodies put the mockers on every bit of character the British once possessed.

It’s always good to hear from photographers who have been on my a Photography Courses and Photography Holidays. I think of it as keeping in touch with friends – and so it is. Elaine Ellen came on a Photography Weekend Workshop recently and yesterday Elaine sent me a photograph, of which she is rightly proud.

Elaine asked: “What do you think of this one? The first couple I took came out white – then I remembered I hadn’t adjusted the aperture!  Fortunately the starling hung around”.

Elaine took this photograph with her Canon 40D

Shutter speed 1/400sec

Aperture f11

ISO 400

I have not come across Serif image editing software before. Like the most photographers, I’m more familiar with Adobe Photoshop. Perhaps it’s time to be a bit less blinkered.

I hasten to add that I have not tried Serif PhotoPlus X3 myself, but here’s a link to an article that provides an independent view of the software so that you can form your own opinion. I have also included an interesting PDF file that Serif sent me – go to Serif information. This shows a functionality and price comparison with other programs.

Anyone who comes to me for photography tuition, or has read the PhotoActive blog, will know that I am not a great fan of over-manipulated images. I do not like pictures that have been created mostly on the computer – from whatever source. Pastiche or combinations of multiple images do nothing for me. Mostly they are hackneyed gimmicks and cover poor camera craft and lack of vision behind the camera.

However, I have always maintained that I am happy to do anything in Photoshop that I could do in the darkroom – and some! The art of good darkroom printing technique is to interpret the image you saw when taking the picture. The art is to enhance, emphasise and accentuate the aspects of the picture that attracted you to capture it in the first place.

And so it should be with PhotoShop. The big difference is that today I can do these things so much more easily and effectively.

With this aim of accentuating what is was that attracted me to capture the a picture right at the start, I have been looking at a shot I took during one of our Photography Holidays in Menorca.

I wanted to sell the picture in my new Photo Print Gallery

The image could not be more simple. It is a picture of a wonderfully weathered stable door on a real working farm we often visit during our field trips. I love this gate, and have made the owner promise that if ever she sells the farm she will let me have the gate. I’ll get it home in my luggage somehow.

The wood of the gate is almost completely bleached to a silvery white, and, with careful camera positioning, the background can be made absolutely black. A perfect photographic subject for black and white, you might think. Yes, I agree. But the more I looked at the gate, the more I realised that one of its attractions to me was not only the monochrome of the wood, but also the rust colour of the chain which fastened it. It was the combination of these that made the picture attractive to me.

Here’s exactly where image manipulation in Photoshop comes up tops.

By simply removing what little colour remained in the wood and leaving behind the colour of the rusty chain, I have accentuated both aspects of the picture that I liked.

Now that, to me, is the real power of Photoshop and image manipulation.

The Photography Holidays in Menorca are now filling well, so please don’t leave it too late before you book this year.

This is a very old photograph – one of those I’m rediscovering as I trawl through my old negatives for my scanning project. I’m glad I found this one before it’s too late because it really is in a bad way and will need an awful lot of careful restoration work. It is a mass of scratches and dust specs. In fact, the dreaded negative fungus is well-established.

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Canon this week launches the new EOS 550D. This is an 18Mp DSLR camera with full HD video and many semi-professional features aimed at the advanced enthusiast photographer.

The New EOS 550D is now stocked in The PhotoActive Camera Shop – it is expected to be available later next week.

It is also available from our Affiliate Jacobs Digital in the following kits. Just follow the links to learn more and buy

	Canon EOS 550D Body only
	Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm kit lens
	Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm and 55-250mm lenses
	PHILIP DUNN’S PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION Canon EOS 550D with 18-135mm lens

The new Canon EOS 550D features: