how to have fun in walla walla without wine

Anne and I spent a couple of days in Walla Walla earlier this week. We intended to visit wineries - an industry that sprang forth in 1977 and how boasts nearly 150 entities. However, we were quickly seduced by the history of the area. Much of the "old town," near Whitman College, was built before 1900. I managed to snap a few interesting pictures as we wandered.

I'll post a few more pictures from the area later this week, but I'm posting these as artifacts of a new post-production tool I'm using on my photographs. Previously, I've used an inexpensive (now discontinued) tool from Microsoft: Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006. While I enjoyed using the suite, it didn't provide the best conversion of my Nikon "raw" camera files to JPG and I had outgrown it's photo touch-up capabilities.

Since I shoot with Nikon equipment, I decided to give Nikon Capture NX2 a try. As you might expect, it does a dandy job converting the "raw" files into JPGs. Beyond the normal photo touch-up fare, it includes some interesting tools to address image issues at the base color level. I'm just beginning to understand some of the power of this tool set.

I'll continue to work on the images from the trip, and a short travel-log (for the history buffs), for posting later this week. For the photography phans, these are a quick peek at some of my early attempts to manipulate images with Capture NX2.