Recently, I have been experimenting with taking photos in RAW. In my ole trustworthy Nikon D60, and in most other DSLR cameras, you have several options when it comes to image quality; several JPG options and then RAW. The RAW option gives the image captured by the sensors in the cameras, i.e. the photo is not processed and can be likened to a negative in old-fashioned photography.

This of course means that you have to process the photo yourself. Because the RAW image is not processed it cannot be viewed with normal image software. You have to use specialised photo software. Last year I bought Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and that works fine with RAW images by opening special camera raw controls. Although Elements has not quite as many options as the full Photoshop version there is still a wide range of ways to tweak the colours and contrast of the RAW image. I mainly tweak temperature, tint and brightness, but exposure, clarity and saturation are also very useful.

I have always been of the opinion that in our modern internet age, it can never really pay off pay money for physical magazines when you can basically find the same information for free on the internet. I still think that this is true. However, the problem is actually finding the time to locate and read the free information. In addition, I have never been particular good at reading longer complicated texts on the internet, so I just simply tend never to actually read it. On the other hand, with a physical magazine you can read it at your leisure, for instance while on the bus, in the train or in a waiting room.

OK so I know that progress on this website is incredibly slow rate and sadly this entry has nothing do to with progress or indeed photography.

I just thought, I wanted to share a funny (or maybe not that funny) little incident happening on this site. A month ago or so when I last worked on the website (yes that is why progress is so slow), I worked on the User Settings and User Profiles. I must have been distracted because I ended up accidentally allowing visitors to create profiles and post entries without requiring any administrator approval or giving me any notifications.

World & Nature Photography is now opened for new users. During a trial period all users are allowed to create blog entries without prior approval. However, registration of new users need to be approved before entries can be posted.

However, blog entries will be moderated post publication and spam entries as well as entries unrelated to photography will be removed by the site administrators.

Unfortunately, progress on this site has been rather slow this year due to severe time commitments on a number of other projects. However, in the mean time Spanish speaking readers can enjoy a new website Fotografia Afficionada.com, which among other things has articles for beginners and newly started photographers that explains the some of the fundamental issues of digital photographing.

Although the development of World & Nature Photography is taking longer than originally thought, there is progress. At the moment the user and blog modules are being developed.