Sure, you can read many how-to books, online tutorials, and even pay for photography classes, but right here, right now, I’m going to give to you the all-inclusive, ultimate guide to becoming a better photographer. To top that off, it can be done in just 1, yes ONE, easy step. The how-tos, tutorials, and classes can help, but without implementing this crucial 1 step process they are useless.

Step 1: Take more pictures!

The End

This is the issue of Life’s Great Photographers Series that’s on shelves right now, the subject: Audrey Hepburn, “Remembering Audrey 15 Years Later”. I’m a huge Audrey Hepburn fan if you didn’t already know, and if you read much about her you’ll love her too, not just as an actress, but as an altruistic humanitarian. My mom saw this issue of Life at Target today and picked it up for me, rarely I never spend this much on a magazine, but to me this is definitely worth it. It’s filled with wonderful pictures, and what I’ve read in it so far is great as well. It won’t be on shelves much longer, so if you want a copy you best get it now or ebay. I now have a great desire to collect every issue Audrey Hepburn has been on the cover of (I’m finding 7 others so far), and to get a pet fawn.

I also just finished reading How to be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life, which is full of quotes and stories that are very inspirational.

And now for some music I’m lovin’
I just started my Best Albums of 2008 list with these two albums:
The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely: While I loved Broken Boy Soldiers, I’m glad this album isn’t just a repeat of that. It’s different, just as great, if not better.

Unwed Sailor – Little Wars: I will venture to say that this is the best Unwed Sailor album to date! It is brilliance to my ears. It’s a more melodic sound closer to Unwed Sailor’s older releases, but it’s more than that, I don’t know how to explain it but it makes me feel nice and I’m in love with it. The LP version has 2 bonus tracks, and I usually hate it when bonus tracks are only available on the vinyl because I like to listen to it on my iPod and in my car, but this LP release comes with a coupon for free digital download of the entire album plus bonus tracks. How awesome is that!

What other albums should make it onto my Best Albums of 2008 list?

What are you lovin’ right now?

The buzz on the web today is all about Photoshop Express, Adobe’s new and completely free online version of Photoshop. Don’t get too excited, it’s far from the real deal, but it does let you crop, sharpen, remove red-eye, and add basic effects to your photos, things the average, everyday digicam user wants yet can’t justify paying for Photoshop to have.

I’ve actually been using the site Picnik, for simple editing and touch-ups like this for some time. I do have Photoshop on my desktop computer, but Picnik is great for simple, quick editing when I don’t want to wait for Photoshop to load, and it can be used on any computer with the internet. While there are other sites out there as well, I don’t think any has been on the same level as Picnik as of yet. Photoshop Express might be able to beat it, but not as it is now.

Right now, Photoshop Express lacks several things that Picnik has, like the ability to add text or shapes to photos for example, and I’m very surprised that I’m not finding a “resize” function anywhere, that’s one of the main things that I use Picnik for. Photoshop Express also lacks Flickr integration, it has Picasa, Facebook, and Photobucket, but no Flickr, supposedly it’s coming. Picnik has those plus Flickr, Myspace, and Webshots, it also allows you to get a photo from your webcam directly or from a website. Photoshop Express does however, have some things Picnik does not, like photo storage and galleries. That may make the difference for some users, but not for me, that’s what I use Flickr for. Oh and Picnik not only has Flickr integrated, but is integrated into Flickr itself, check out those buttons above your photos.

I’ll still check it out, and will continue to do so, as I know it will change a lot from it’s current “beta,” but Photoshop Express is going to have to kick it up a notch before they can steal me away from Picnik.

Oh and if I see one more post about Muxtape, I’m going to scream! That’s right, no link, I will not succumb to it’s plea for the attention of the masses, you (and you, and you, and you, and you) have already done that enough for all of us. And it doesn’t even work in my browser, just so you know.