The other day, mr. strivingcynic and I went for a walk in a nearby park called Sourland Mountain Preserve (love that name…). Even though it’s only 15-20 minutes away, I’d never been there before.

I enjoyed getting out with my camera and taking some photos of the fall scenery. When I was looking at them on my computer, I thought I should (finally) explore doing some photo enhancements. My computer came with Photoshop and I almost never use it. So, I decided to play around a little with “smart fix” and a few effects. Aside from cropping, I brightened or darkened a few photos…and so I give you a sampling of “enhanced fall.”

As you can see, I didn’t do anything too drastic, and it’s interesting to see the differences in before and after.

Here’s the last picture as it came off my camera.

This one didn’t get cropped (mr. sc advised me that it didn’t need it), but you can see the colors in the enhanced one are…enhanced. And it’s a little sharper.

I have to say, I don’t see myself becoming a Photoshop expert, but it is interesting to see how the photo can change with effects. I’m trying to decide whether it’s a shame that I want to change what I saw…and I imagine I would feel compelled to announce when I played with an effect, but not if I just cropped a photo.

At any rate, it definitely felt good to be out and about with a camera in hand.

Do you use photo editing software? What sort of changes do you make to photos you take?