Create great photos - learn the steps to making a great landscape photograph

What's the difference?

Making a great landscape photograph begins when I arrive at a beautiful scene I want to capture. Then I scout the location for elements of the scenery I want to include in my photo. Looking for that perfect rock, flower, or other feature is a lot of fun. While I'm doing that, I'm also looking at the distant features and the best angle to capture them.

Using the rules of composition, I then frame my photo in the viewfinder. Sometimes it's obvious how the photo needs to be composed, sometimes it is not. One of the great things about digital photography is that you can try the photo many ways. Try some shots standing upright. Then kneel or sit down. Bend a little to the left or right to make sure there's nothing too centered in your photo.

It's not unusual to return home from an afternoon of photography with hundreds of photos on the memory card.

This is also a good time to root through your camera bag and try different lenses and filters. Though I like to keep it simple, working with a versatile zoom lens and maybe a polarizing filter, it can be fun to experiment with different variations to learn how they affect the final product.

At this point, I may have taken a great photo. Odds are, however, I've got the ingredients for a great photo. When I get home, I'll upload my photographs to my computer and review them.

I like to toggle through my images using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. For some scenes, I'll move through the images, forward and back, until I see the one that has the best angle and composition. While I'm doing this, I write down the numbers of those photos that I think I can make great.

Now I'll open up my photo editing software program, and open the first image I want to improve. I always adjust the levels before any other adjustments. Next I may crop it, if necessary, sharpen, and use the band-aid tool to clean up any imperfections.

If I think it's as good as it's going to get, I save it with a different name (usually I add an "a" to the front of the existing file name, so I know which one was the basis for the final product). I may add a watermark and save it again. Sometimes I'll convert the image to black and white, if I think it might look good that way.

Then I go through the rest of my photos, repeating the process until all the ones I like have been made as good as they can be.

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Finally, I review all the photos I've modified, and upload my favorites to flickr, where I can add them to sets and groups. This last step allows my contacts on flickr to view and comment on my work, but also gives me a link I can send to friends and family when I tell them about the day's highlights.

In the end, about 3% of the shots I took that day survive the screening and editing process and are uploaded for all to see. That's how I create great photos. Now it's time for you to practice what I've described here, and start creating your own great photographs!

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