Hi Don,
I vote for visually pleasing. However you shold be able to correct for the other two you mention in your imaging program. What, if any are you using?

Don,

Who cares about "technically correct" images? Police photographers, archeologists, technical manual writers (sometimes), etc. etc. They are because they have a certain goal in mind, to document a situation as close to reality as possible, and even that is open to debate.
Then there are the people that take photos because they love this form of art, they have certain effects in mind, they want to express themselves and yes, they take the occasion shot of a birthday party or a Christmas gathering as memories, pleasant or otherwise. I personally belong to the second category, but I also like to understand the technical side of photography and explore it to the max. I understand noise in digital cameras and know when it becomes visible in my photos. I understand how to make digital panoramas and built my own panorama bracket. I know how to take infrared photos, panorama or otherwise. And I enjoy every minute that I spend studying, researching and, by golly, taking pictures. Non-documentary photography is highly subjective and that's a good thing (to borrow from another highly controversial individual).

Frans Waterlander
frans2001@netzero.net

It's about creating an image that moves the viewer, or fulfills a purpose that the photographer had in mind during creation.

Dave,

Is there a way in Photoshop CS to counter barrel distortion? My Nikon 18-70mm DX lens has a minor amount of barrel distortion at short focal lengths.

Frans Waterlander

Quote:
Dave,

Is there a way in Photoshop CS to counter barrel distortion? My Nikon 18-70mm DX lens has a minor amount of barrel distortion at short focal lengths.

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Hi,

I guess there isn't a native filter for this, or at least I can't find it. As I use Paint Shop Pro X--it does have this ability built in. Under "Adjust" you have your choice of Barrel, Pincushio, and Fisheye corrections.

Dave,

Lens correction filters were one of the added features in CS 2. It works quite well to correct curvilinear distortions, along with the ability straightening images a bit skewed by the use of extreme wide angle lenses, and the color fringing you get with very wide lenses used with digital cameras.

Thanks for the uptick David. Can't afford the upgrade at the moment. Since I last TT you, my main computers's power supply fried and took the computer with it. So, I decided to build my own--great fun. Fortunately, I had backed nearly everything up on an external HD, but I lost all my mail backup that I had saved in folders--Grrr..
So I will have to wait a bit for the wallet to recover. It's not the "dream" computer I wished, but compared to my old one, it flies like the wind.
At this point I will have to give a plug for Tiger-direct.
Their phone and on line help were great, as were the prices.
I was able to put together a fairly decent system for around
$400 after all the rebates come in. The only things I was able to salvage from the old system were a DVDrom drive, a Scuzzy card, and my floppy drive--the rest was toast.
Athlon64/3000,250 gig WD Drive, DVD+-writer,a decent MB,
nVidia Gforce MX 5500 card, case, fans, I gig pc 3200/400 RAM. I am using the onboard sound on the MB--my room is fairly small and it actually sounds better than my old fairly expensive former (expensive and now dead card).

I am sorry you had a meltdown, but glad to hear you put things back in order by building a new machine. I used to do that a lot myself, not just for myself, but others as well. But with age my tolerance for frustration is not up to what it was and is often required making disparate components work one with another happily. So I am now enjoying letting Apple deal with that and putting what energies I have to what interests me more.

However, CS2 is a worthwhile upgrade, especially if you are dealing with Raw camera files a lot. Particularly Bridge is an exceptionally effective 'browser' with an adept capability for organizing in your own individual way. Most asset management applications are not as flexible and do not accommodate individual peculiarities as well as Bridge does.

I vote for pleasing too. I don't use any program very well but have a bunch. Got one a couple weeks ago called "Photo Explusion" that does a few things for me. Also have photo shop 6 that my cousin gave me. Had it about a year and just found out how to get a picture in it. Niece is home from colledge and knows how to work it, showed me a little. Have a photo of my great grandparents taken in the 1800's. Actually it's a photo I took of a photo. Pretty bad shape but got it fixed up! Have a brother in Detroit, Mich thats a wizzard with it. Gonna go seem him in the spring. I guess I'm whats called compiter illerate.

Seems like I need to practice this a bit. I came out anonyomus up above. Don't know if that photo will go or not but I got one. If it makes the trip, its my grandduaghter Samantha. I don't think it'll make it.

A suggestion. If you're using software that was given to you, don't mention it on any forums or you'll find it difficult to get people to help you. Bootleg software is against the law.

OK, practice time. I think I made a smaller photo. It's of my granddaughter and daughter-in-law. Took it with a D70 in my living room using some Britec lights I bought about a year ago. This is a test, no laughing!

It was given to me by a cousin as a gift. That qualifies as bootlegging? He bought it.

That's legitimate unless he has it installed on his computer also, or you're sharing a serial number. I'm not trying to make you defend yourself, which you will have to do anytime you mention it was given to you. My point was that there was no reason to bring it up that it was given to you in the first place.

The new Paintshop Pro X does a fine job correcting Barrel Distortion. The new Paintshop pro (X) has little to do with painting and all to do with Photography. Great Program!