In this issue:
- what's new at MPS
- photo tip of the month
...free image editors for the PC
- safarian "image gallery"
- our current safaris
- history tidbits
WHAT'S NEW AT MPS?
Our regularly scheduled safari 2011
booking calendars for the St Anthony Falls
Heritage Trail and the St. Paul Capital area are now online. These 2 tours will resume April 2011.
We
still have 3 openings on our special "Minneapolis Nights" winter
session coming up February 19th... and 4 openings on the March 12th session.
LINK HERE for the
detail and sign up page.
Our Mall of
America, Hiawatha Light Rail, and Minneapolis Skyway Tours run through March 31st.
We are also developing a new NIGHT tour on the Nicollet Mall As always, we offer private one on one or small group safaris. Watch our web site and newsletters for details.
OUR CURRENT SAFARIS NOW INCLUDE:
All of these safaris, except those that include the
Skyways, run Thursdays thru Sundays. The Skyway Tours run only Thursdays and
Fridays.
for complete schedules, visit our
Web Site
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MPS PHOTO TIP OF THE MONTH
Freeware Image Editors
In
this newsletter we look at some of the more popular image editors for
the PC available either free or at very reasonable shareware prices.
Our next newsletter will cover apps available for the MAC
FOR THE PC
The GIMP is arguably the most powerful free photo editor available today. With that comes the Photoshop comparisons. Often lauded as the "free Photoshop," the GIMP does offer many features similar to Photoshop, but it has a steep learning curve to match.
http://www.gimp.org/
IrfanView is a freeware/shareware image viewer for Microsoft Windows that can view, edit, and convert image files and play video/audio files. It is noted for its small size, speed, ease of use, and ability to handle a wide variety of graphic file formats, and has some image creation and painting capabilities. The software was first released in 1996. IrfanView is free for non-commercial use; commercial use requires paid registration.
http://www.irfanview.com
Paint.NET started life as a college project aimed at producing an alternative to Microsoft Paint, but has developed into an accomplished and feature-packed pixel-based image editor suitable for use as a day-to-day image enhancement application or to produce more creative results.
http://www.getpaint.net
PhotoPlus SE is the free version of Serif's established image editor available for Windows users. For many years, Serif has offered free versions of their software to attract users, but users should note that with PhotoPlus SE, some features and tools are disabled.
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/photoplus
Photo Pos Pro was previously offered as a paid for application but is now available for free. This pixel-based image editor promises much, but lacks the overall coherency to set itself apart from the other applications in this field.
http://www.photopos.com
This award-winning graphic editor offers a variety of painting and editing tools and features including a text tool, gradients, selections by color or region, color replacement, editing in any scale, special effects and so on. The free version used to be an enticement to upgrade to the Pro version, but as of December 2006, the Pro version is free.
http://www.vicman.net/vcwphoto/index.htm
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SAFARIAN
IMAGE GALLERY
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Our
February 2011 image of the
month is from Sherry V. from Iowa.
On the full
day Mall of America / Light Rail / Skyway tour, one of our last stops
is the lobby of the Hennepin County Government Center. Sherry
caught this nice image of the flag and its reflection in the fountain.
As luck would have it, the sun was just right that
afternoon!
Nice work
Sherry!
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HISTORY TIDBITS FROM OUR SAFARIS
On the
East Bank (morning and Sunday) Heritage Trail Safari, We visit and
photograph Our Lady of Lourdes Church.
Our Lady of Lourdes Church is the oldest continuously used church in the city of Minneapolis. It was designated a U.S. historic landmark in 1934 and is the first parish in the United States named in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes.
The superstructure of the church clearly shows two different types of architecture. The original building, the front rectangular nave, which is the part from the side doors back to the inner glass doors, was constructed of native limestone by the First Universalist Society between 1854 and 1857, in a Greek temple style, as can be seen in the enlarged photo on display in the vestibule of the church. Twenty years later, in 1877, the building was purchased by the Catholic French Canadian community, which had been a part of St. Anthony of Padua parish, the first Catholic parish in Minneapolis. This community has worshipped here continuously for over 120 years.
We combine Photography AND History on all of our
Safaris to help you visualize and compose your images of the historically
significant areas we tour.
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