Waterfall – Before and After – Lightroom Mobile

I was looking through some old photographs that I took way back when and decided to see what I could do with some of them before I hit delete. When this photo was taken it was a rainy foggy day in Victoria. Not one of my best! Over time I have tried many different photo editing programs; Luminar, Adobe Photoshop Elements; Photoshop; Lightroom… My favorite is still Lightroom. Recently I have been editing with Lightroom mobile and find that it does a really nice job! Many of the tools you use in Lightroom desktop are available in Lightroom Mobile. It’s a great app for on the run!

Photo Editing – Before & After

It is always a challenge to experiment with artistic tools in photo editing programs. There are so many options within each tool and the final outcome is solely based on personal preference. Thought I would give it try and share the results! On the left is the original photograph taken in Pienza, Italy. It is a charming little town with many different little shops. The one on the right is the edited version. Editing was done using Topaz Studio 2, Nik Collection, and Photoshop Elements 21 to fine tune lighting and sharpening.

Photography-Before & After-Luminar 4 & Topaz Studio 2

Before – f/5.6; ISO-1600; 1/3200 sec; 171mm

This photograph was taken at Arlington Park Racetrack in Arlington Heights, IL. It has been a while since I have used Luminar 4 to process a photo. After using Lightroom and Photoshop for years, it is very hard to switch to a new program. Luminar offers many tools, sky enhancements (as you can see above), and it still allows you to work in layers which is a must for me! Taking it a step further, I brought the image into Topaz Studio 2 to further process. Topaz Studio 2 offers many photo editing tools along with many artistic presets that you can tweak to your liking. Thought I would share my results.

Photography – Creating a Mood

Venice-wp

Venice Before

Before and After – This photo was taken in Venice, Italy on the Grand Canal. Challenged once again in this week’s class assignment – to create a dark, moody image. My tendency has always been to use my go to standard workflow adjustments; highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, clarity…..I was quite surprised by how motivating and challenging it was to go for a different look. My big learning in this assignment was the discovery of the power and different effects you can achieve by using the Curves tool.

Unconventional Photography-Photo Composites

White Pelican Waterfall-1

After so many years of taking and processing “traditional” photographs, I decided to expand my creative side and signed up for an “unconventional” photography class at a local community college near me. The class is designed to sharpen your photography skills and combine images artistically through photo manipulation. The professor displayed a number of creative photographs that were the result of combining two or more different photographs. Window frames became works of art, and portraits were fashioned into painted illustrations. It awakened me to a whole new photographing/editing adventure!

Part of class last night was to take abstract photographs inside the campus. Below is a closeup of part of a waterfall taken with a slow shutter speed inside the entrance of the building my class was in. I liked the way it turned out and decided to try my hand at combining two photos. I had taken a photo of a white pelican on a lake a couple of years ago. Given the white edge at the top of the waterfall photo, I thought these two photographs might blend well. Both photos where processed separately then processed again when combined. I used two Apps, Snapseed® and Painnt®. Then finished it off with Photoshop Elements® and NIK®. I am quite sure this can be done using just Photoshop. I haven’t mastered it enough so I improvised with what I know well. If you haven’t tried this yet, I would highly recommend it. It has awakened a whole new energy within and expanded my parameters on what to photograph!

waterfall

Photography-Flowers and Backgrounds

Two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds.

With the summer days quickly flying by, I decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Gardens to photograph flowers. My focus was to isolate a flower and pay attention to background. At the time of capture I honestly had nothing in mind in choosing a background. But, after reviewing, discovered color can really impact the mood of an image especially when photographing flowers…two yellow flowers, two different backgrounds evoke two different moods.

Flower Photography – Macro Lens Mount Adapters

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f/2.8; 1/100 sec; ISO-1250; 60mm – Sony a6000 and Canon 60mm macro lens.

Recently, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and purchased a Sony mirrorless camera. You could label me as “brand loyal” when it comes to Canon cameras. I know how they work, am very comfortable with settings, menus, etc. My motivation – we do a lot of traveling and am tired of lugging heavy camera equipment.

To my surprise, the Sony menu is not very user friendly, and the learning curve for me was very time consuming. But, I must say it takes an incredibly sharp photograph for the price point.

The one component I didn’t research very well was the expense and availability of Sony lenses. Do your homework on lens availability before you buy! The next best option for me was to find a lens mount adapter to allow me to use some of my Canon lenses with a Sony camera. Although the adapter doesn’t work with all of my Canon lenses, it works with the ones I use most often. It arrived today and given it was 7 degrees outside, I decided to do a quick shoot in my kitchen using the Sony camera with a Canon 60mm macro lens.