Anyone reading this blog knows that I am very much into digital photography. I like to use editing software such as Photoshop and Photomatix to refine pictures. Sometimes I use some strong processes to achieve a different look. The variety of things you can do to a photo is endless. Sometimes it takes just a bit of adjustment in contrast, sharpness, hue or saturation to make a good photo great. Other times, simple changes like converting a picture to black & white makes a huge difference.

Recently I downloaded Picasa from Google. It is free software. It works great for organizing your pictures and making it very easy to find them. I recently started checking out the processing effects that are available in Picasa and was amazed at the quality. Not only do their tweaks work great and look great, they are very easy to apply AND one click of a button reverses the process in case you didn’t like it.

Below is a photo I took at a concert in North Tonawanda at Gateway Park. The first one is the original with just a bit of enhancement from Photoshop. The second one is the same shot using the “focal b&w” effect in Picasa. In my opinion the second shot looks much more interesting and was very easy to produce. Picasa is completely free and I would highly recommend it. Anyone can use it, you don’t have to be a pro at post-processing.