Chained Sand

Black and White Sunrise

Funky Colors not seen in Nature

A Challenge

Every June Hawaii celebrates the first ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom, King Kamehameha I.  Friday afternoon is the Lei draping ceremony on the King’s statue in front of the State Judiciary Building – Aliiolani Hale in Honolulu.  The Royal Hawaiian Band provides music to start.  A Hula Halau dances in celebration accompanied by a local musical group.  While Hawaiian civic groups present 13 foot Leis for draping  over the statue with assistance from the local Honolulu Fire Department Ladder Company.  It’s usually a beautiful afternoon with good light for taking pictures of the ceremony.

There in lies the challenge.  First, in the strong afternoon light blown highlights are guaranteed to show in your photos given the bright white in the base of the statue plus the  golden robe and headdress on the King. Then the angle of the sun puts the Judicial building and the people standing in front of it in shadow.  So how do you expose to cover both extremes?  If you concentrate on just the statue it’s easier to expose for the brightness.  I like to add context to the picture and show more of the surroundings.  This means finding the sweet spot where both the brightest and darkest areas have enough data in them to allow you to adjust the image in post processing.  In this photo it means being able to reduce the brightness to bring out the texture in the base and lighten the shadows without noise becoming prominent and reducing detail.

A graduated filter attached to your lens helps you to balance the exposure before you record the image.   The latest version of Lightroom includes a Graduated filter which allows you to create the same effect.   I find it better than the adjustment brush.  The Adjustment Brush has a narrow range of effectiveness.  Too much adjustment on the white base turns it a pale gray instead of reducing the brightness.

 

Blurred Surfer

I made the leap to a DSLR in 2005 with the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D.  The photo ops that pushed the limits of my 7D and lens combination were lowlight with alot of movement.  I took a bunch of pictures that I knew weren’t great but they had potential if I knew how to work with them.   Surfing subjects within an hour of sunset were a challenge.  I could push the ISO up to 1600 but I wasn’t happy with those results.  The highest I would go was ISO 800 with my 28-200 Sigma at full zoom.  With the lens as wide as it would go the best shutter speeds I could get were 45th or 60th of a sec. After my initial post processing I set those pics aside to wait for a better day.  Today is the day for one of them.  With recent upgrades in both hardware and software plus additional skill with the software (Lightroom and Photoshop), I’m revisiting those early efforts.   What ya think?

Lightroom Presets

Two great features of Lightroom are it’s ability to create virtual copies that exist only within LR and not on your hard drive. Then you can take the copy and apply a preset (a group of settings) in this case a combination of Develop settings to come up with different treatments for an image.  You can let your fancy run free.

The LR preset for this image is called Neg Kodak VC 160 warm. It’s actually designed to convert your color negatives just copied with your digital camera for a Kodak VC 160 film. This is a Point Curve Preset by  radical edits to the Tone Curve. In order to subvert Lightroom’s parametric Tone Curve, you must either edit the Tone Curve in Adobe Camera Raw or edit the Preset by hand.

You can easily create your own or some websites sell them or you can find free ones.  This was downloaded from Inside Lightroom

NAPP

No, this post isn’t about the virtues of taking a nap. Although I heartily recommend you take one on a regular basis. This is about the National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

Being a bit of a computer geek since the mid 80’s I knew about Photoshop and it’s reputation as the top graphics and image editing tool. Since my needs in that area were decidedly modest I had no need or desire to spend the considerable amount to get the program. Then digital photography came on the scene along with a timely discount offer for Photoshop 7. Talk about serendipity.

Using Photoshop for the first time is like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool, without getting swimming lessons first. I quickly came to realize the Photoshop motto should be “Why do it just one way, when a half dozen different ways will do.”

This is where NAPP comes into the story. I bought several books to help me but NAPP had short bite size tutorials designed to show you how to create a specific effect in Photoshop. Learn by doing. What’s more the website had video tutorials that you could watch! Neat!

I created the border around the picture you see below by watching a video by R.C. Concepcion on the website. Thank you R.C.

While I’ve found Photoshop useful in my photography, Lightroom really greased the wheels of my pursuit of improvement. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts. NAPP has plenty of resources to help you with Lightroom as well.

There’s a lot more available to you so take a look and if you like what you see click on this link to sign up.
Refer a Friend You’ll get “The Best of Photoshop User: The Tenth Year” DVD as a bonus gift.

One more thing, I realize it’s called National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Therefore, you need to be making a living using Photoshop. Nope. You just need the desire to improve. NAPP will help you do that.

Lightroom Tip

Lightroom allows for a couple of easy ways to create a Black and White. You can do a simple desaturate of the color channels or go gray scale. Either way, after you’ve got the image the way you want it. Take one more step and play with the White Balance slider. You can coax a slightly different look out of an image.

Photo on right is before White Balance adjustment

Welcome

In front of the Hawaii Convention Center is a bronze statue that symbolizes the welcoming spirit of the Hawaiian people. I was there for Scott Kelby’s Lightroom Power Tour last December and took this picture at the end of the day. Which was a mistake because the light wasn’t strong.
To improve the image I utilized the presets available in Lightroom. Finally, I settled on a Split Toning that added a little warming to it. I’d originally thought to make it B&W but I like the green tinted glass of the Convention Center in the background.

Bronze Statue at Hawaii Convention Center

Why I am grateful for Lightroom

In March 2005 I upgraded to the Maxxum 7D from the Maxxum 7. I made the leap to a DSLR. I looked forward to taking as many pictures as I wanted and only printing the ones I wanted. I quickly learned it wasn’t quite that simple.
Photoshop CS and ACR allowed me to process my RAW images. However, ACR was clunky in it’s ability to help me review and pick the best images. It’s one thing to take alot of pictures. It’s another to find the best of them. Then after finding them, I had to go into Photoshop to complete the process. So an 8 meg RAW file turns into a 10 or 20 or more PSD file. It was all so ungainly and not a great encouragement to go out and take alot of pictures so I could learn to make better images.
Then out of the blue Adobe announced the beta program for Lightroom. As soon as I started to use it. I knew this is what I’d been waiting for. Easy to learn and quick to use.
Why do I write about this? For the past several days I’ve been going back thru my pictures from the first year of using my DSLR. Beyond the obvious bad images. I never culled my pictures for the marginal ones. It was too tedious with Bridge-ACR-PS workflow. LR is soo much faster. Plus I can easily work with a marginal image. Play with the WB. Work in B&W or Split Tone. Easily make a creative crop. With the latest version of LR you can do selective adjustments that before required using PS.
Now I go out and take hundreds of pictures knowing I can quickly distill it down to just the ones I want. All keyworded and organized into collections that I can upload to my website.
For the average JPEG Point and Shoot user LR is more than you’d want to pay for a software program to process your images. However, if you’re making the transition to a DSLR add Lightroom to your purchasing plans. You won’t regret it. If you’re a MAC user than you’ve also got Aperture to consider. Either program will allow you to effortlessly examine your images. Learn what worked and improve yourself thereby. Helping you to present your best to the viewing public.

Kitesurfers in Maunalua Bay