Photodoto | image editing

Free photo editors for Linux, Mac, and Windows

Can't afford Photoshop? Can't justify the expense? What do you need in a good photo editor anyway? To me, the absolute essential features necessary for any photo editing app are: Layers and layer masks (alpha editing). These features let you selectively apply edits and filters to portions of the image that [...]

Photography 101

Black and White Conversion: Channel Mixer Recipes

Black and white conversion is a mysterious process. There are many ways to do it and none is objectively any better than any other for every photo. So, these are guidelines, really, in the spirit of a recipe. But unlike following a recipe for baking a cake, we are not [...]

Tips, Tutorials, Hacks

Screencast: Editing Huntington Beach Pier Sunset

A short screencast showing the power of the curves tool for enhancing contrast, increasing saturation, and color adjustment. A large final version of this photo can be seen at lightproofbox.com. This photo is from an essay I wrote called Patience, A Photographer's Ally.

Grab bag

19th century photo manipulation

Just in case you had the idea that photo manipulation in the age of digital photography is somehow a new idea... This clip is from the program The Genius of Photography airing on Ovation TV. It's a great series. Catch it if you can.

Tips, Tutorials, Hacks

Black and White with a Splash of Colour

One of the techniques people most often ask me to teach them is making a photograph like the one on the right that is black and white with one other colour. There are a few ways to achieve this effect but here is the one I find easiest for Photoshop [...]