From Darkness It Comes

A Thousand Words

Darrin heads to the section of the library he knows the best and grabs one of the books he hasn't read yet. It is mostly full of pictures of landscapes taken of the same place with different camera settings, lenses, filters, and lights used. Examples of how these things effect the shot and what you can do to improve the image. Later in the book you have samples and examples showing how you can use PhotoShop and other software to alter and correct photos in ways you couldn't have imagined ten years ago. This is the section he was most interested in. He knows little about computers but this interests him.

Using algorithms, filters, and the right settings you can use the software to fade out blemishes, correct color distortions, remove dust and scratches, or even completely alters the image in all sorts of ways. Things can be added or removed from the original image. Most of the examples are mundane examples of birthmark, scratch, or unwanted sign removal but Darrin can visualize the real power of these tools.

Soon after finishing this last chapter of the book he starts hunting out other books and manuals about PhotoShop and photo manipulation techniques. There turns out to be a rather good collection of books on this very subject in the next isle over. Some of them get into the more creative and extreme things you can do with the software, just as Darrin imagined while reading the other book. He now has a new direction for his studies and hopes there are classes available next semester.

After picking out a few books to check out and making notes about dozens of others Darrin decides to change gears or else he is going to spend all night reading these and never get some sleep. It's always like this when he learns some new concept that grabs him. It's just like the time he got his hands on his first zoom lens. So it's on to something else.