[ljmoffett]

or afternoon, or evening....depending on where you are exactly

My name is Laura, and I am new to photography. When I say new, I mean NEW. I know very little about my camera (I've only learned a tiny bit about shooting in manual mode), and I know absolutely nothing about editing photos. I read review after review about free photo editing software, and GIMP definitely stood out to be the best that is offered, so I downloaded it since I'm just starting out. I am so glad that I came across this forum. I read through a few of the posts already, and everybody seems to be very helpful....which I will definitely need, ha ha!

I'm not really looking to ever go pro with photography, but I've always been interested in it as a hobby. Last year, I finally bought what I think is a good "starter" camera as a bundle package, and I have been playing around with it ever since. My biggest reason is my family. Photos make wonderful memories come alive for me, and I want my child(ren) to have many when they are older. Right now, I have an 8 year old son, so I do a lot of picture outdoors and a lot of action shots. He plays baseball, basketball & football. He loves to swim. We enjoy the beach, parks, fishing, etc. We are a very outdoors loving family.

If anybody has any advice on where to start off as a beginner, please pass it along this way. I'm going to go start reading, reading, reading throughout the forum now. Oh - if it helps, my camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T2i. I have an EFS 18-55 mm lens and an EFS 55-250 mm lens. I haven't bought anything else for the camera so far.

I do have two questions off the top of my head:

1. What is a GIMP plug in and how do you install them and make them work? I downloaded the new version of GIMP which I believe is 2.8

2. What is a good, yet not too terribly expensive, wide angle lens for my camera? If I'm not mistaking, a wide angle lens would be good for landscape shots, correct? Maybe I am wrong on this....if so, somebody please correct me. I handle constructive criticism very well

[Ben9190]

Welcome to Gimptalk!

I understand Instagram didn't cut it when it comes to photo editing (its a joke) Glad you chose gimp!

I'm not much of a photographer at all (aka zero percent), so i cannot help you with question #2, but i can with #1

A plug in is a filter or effect that wasn't part of gimps software launch gimp, but was created by people to add on to gimps functionality. By downloading some plugins, you'll find there are a lot of effects and restoration things you could do that you originally couldn't with Gimps basic filters.
To install a plugin in gimp, simply download the plugin, then (if you use windows):

Cut it and move it to: Local Disk C>gimp 2.8> plug-ins folder

Just drop it in there and next time gimp comes up you should find it somewhere in the filter section in gimp

If no one answers your second question, i suggest trying the general help section

Have fun Gimping!