experimenting...

FIRST ~ a HUGE disclaimer!!
I don't know the first thing about taking pictures.
I just know I enjoy messing around with it.
And I haven't even moved my camera off AUTO yet!
I hear there is a whole new world to explore when I get the nerve.

So with that said...

One of my favorite things to do is play with my photos in a post editing program.
I don't have Photoshop so I use two simple and FREE programs.
One is Picasa and the other picnik.
I don't mess around too much.
Just some tweaking here and there.

Both of these shots were taken within minutes of each other.

In this one I enhanced the cool tones, deepened some of the shadows and then added just a little bit of highlights back in.

In this one I enhanced the warmer tones, barely touched the shadows and then added a few highlights.

I really like them both.

The top ones just feels watery and swimming pool-ish.

The bottom one feels warm and summery.