The beginning

I recently purchased a Canon XS. I have the kit lens. My next purchase will be the budget 50mm.

I am learning to shoot in Manual but I do like Tv for the action shots. I use a flash indoors but only with my light scoop.

I have tried Lightroom3 and I love it. But it is out of my budget right now. I just downloaded the trial to PSE8. It's more difficult to learn that LR3 but I'm getting the hang of it. This is more in my budget. There is also Picnik that offers basic editing tools for about $25 a year. So I'm trying to make an editing choice.  

My most current challenge is to organize my storage. I work off of three computers - laptop, home desktop, and work desktop. I don't store photos at work but occasionally save to the computer when I'm "working" on something. My desktop runs on Vista with the Windows Photo Gallery. My laptop runs on Windows 7 and has Windows Live Photo Gallery. The challenge is to organize my files on the hard drive - deleting those I don't need and saving the really special pictures to multiple locations. I use SmugMug for my online storage. I also want to get a western digital external storage drive.

I am a member of several photography boards. I am learning so much from very talented and knowledgeable ladies.