Art historians will tell you that modern art--with its emphasis on distorting reality--came about after cameras were invented, as painters were looking for ways to differentiate their art from the realistic "perfection" of photographs. If you think about it, we're kind of like those nineteenth-century artists. Our digital cameras take great photos--but after a while, it all starts to feel pretty mundane. What can we do to jazz them up? It turns out that there are a slew of easy, eye-popping special effects that you can try--tilt-shift, high dynamic range, blur effects, and more--both on your PC and, in some cases, right in your camera when you take the picture.
Photo courtesy Flickr user Ernst Vikne.