Create depth of field: You can quite easily add depth of field to the images that you have taken "snaps" of. If you have an image that is completely in focus and the background too is in focus (a common effect of non SLR digital point and shoot cameras) the you can solve this using Photoshop. You simply draw a mask or make a selection around the subject, invert that mask so that it selects all but the subject and apply a blur effect to the part of the image that is selected. In the later versions of Photoshop there is actually a filter that emulates the natural lens blur. The end result is a sharp, in focus subject with an out of focus background. This can be very effective and can draw attention to the subject.

Where is Picture Manager? To open Picture Manager, on the Start menu, point to All Programs, then to Microsoft Office, and then to Microsoft Office Tools, and then click Microsoft Office Picture Manager. The AutoCorrect command fixes brightness, color, and contrast. It can also crop, rotate or flip and resize the picture. Microsoft Office Picture Manager is the Microsoft Office System 2003 tool you can use to manage, edit, and share your pictures. Picture Manager works with a variety of file formats, including: .jpg, .gif, and .bmp.

Lightning Effect: You can use various types of lightning effects and of different colors, applying them to an image using Adobe Photoshop. This will enhance your photo tremendously. How to do it:- We'll follow a stepwise manner in doing this: 1 Open your editor or Adobe Photoshop program. 2 Now open the desired image (make sure you open it in RGB format). 3 Now from the filter menu choose Renderer and then select your desired lighting effects. 4 You will see the lighting effect dialogue box opens up. 5 Choose the desired lighting style from the topmost selection menu; you will notice the options style of lights. 6 Choose the light type and move the sliders to set the intensity and focus. 7 You can also change the properties by toggling the sliders for glass, material, exposure, and ambience. 8 You can also change the color of light. To change the color of light just click on the boxes to the right of the light type and properties. This will open the color, picker dialogue box. Choose a color and press ok. 9 To change the direction or placement of light just drag any of the points on the outside ellipse or center point. Click ok after you have adjusted the direction and placement of light.

But what good is that going to do if you're used to the Photoshop interface? Nothing. In a nutshell, Photoshop is for linear thinkers, and Gimp is for lateral thinkers. Both of them can arrive at very nearly the same result, so close that it's a neck and neck race. Bottom line, for website graphics and simple editing jobs it's almost insane to spend the money to use Photoshop. And Gimp is likewise inadequate for the needs of a professional print shop. Go ahead, give Gimp a try. You have nothing to loose, and its free!

The coolest thing about Photoshop is that even as powerful as it is out of the box, there are many different plug-ins to make Photoshop even more powerful. The Photoshop plug-ins can be grouped into a few major categories which include 3D, color management, digital asset management, photographic, retouching, and special effects. The retouching plug-ins can intelligently change the contrast, color, sharpness, and many other common filters to make a picture look as crisp as possible. The special effects plug-ins are my favorite, because they can make a rather plain image into something fantastic. If you use Photoshop on a regular basis, then you need to look at some of the plug-ins that are available, because they can make your life much easier, and your graphics look much better.

One of the most powerful functionalities in Photoshop is the ablilty to overlay images and objects on top of each other, and then change the overall opacity of those layers, or selectively change the opacity in certain areas of the layer.

When I am creating web sites I use Photoshop to create the navigation for the web site and also to optimize all of the images, so that my web site will load faster. I usually create buttons for the navigation, and then create rollover effects from within Image Ready. This saves me quite a bit of time, because all of the JavaScript for the mouse over effects are done for me, which allows me to work on the more advanced coding of the pages. Even if you want to create all of the navigation and layout of your web site without Photoshop, then you should at least use Photoshop to optimize your images so that you web site loads within a reasonable amount of time.