What I Am Working On: Two Tools, One Task

I was working on this file:

ISO 320 f/11 1/320sec 24mm

I had done a few steps of basic editing when I saw the flag peeking out from behind the grave marker. Interesting how sometimes details like this can be missed at first. I wanted to remove it from my final edit. The really good news is that removing objects from photos has gotten easier and much more natural-looking over the years. In this case, I used both the erase and clone and stamp tools in Luminar. I find the erase tool is good for removal and clone and stamp works well for the clean up of any mess the eraser leaves behind. I would also suggest that you do work like this on the biggest screen you have and make use of the zoom tool as well so that you can get a really good look at what you are doing. The final edit is this one:

ISO 320 f/11 1/320sec 24mm

This final edit has the Luminar Look, Camden Fade, applied to it. The photo was shot at Luxembourg American Cemetery. It is a beautiful spot, a good place to reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought in World War II. Your thoughts on the edit are welcome below. This post was inspired by the Lens-Artist Photo Challenge, Reflections.

Cheers!

Cambridge Morning

While autumn can often be rainy and overcast here in England, it can also be brilliant like it was recently on a morning while I was walking in Cambridge:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

That original file was taken with my point and shoot. My first edit is below:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

The image has been cropped a bit and I’ve used a foliage enhancer slider to give the colors a bit of a boost.  I liked but didn’t love the result. One of the problems is that part of the sky has been blown out completely. There is no information there, so “fixing” it becomes a bit tricky. The two options that came to mind were sky replacement or a more radical crop.  I went with the latter:

ISO 200 4.3mm f/2.7 1/320sec

I went that direction for compositional reasons. The photo is now much more about the boats, which looked beautiful in the morning light. I also really liked the various reflections in the water and this crop accentuates them. From there I boosted the various golden tones in the image, giving it a bit of a jeweled looked.

While it took a few edits and some time and thought to get to the final edit, I was happy with the edit. What do you think of the final version? Do you like the final composition or do you prefer the original? The crop really does change the image quite a bit. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Picfair version here.

Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Reflection, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Places People Visit and Lens Artists Photo Challenge, Changeable.

 

Revisiting Giverny

I do sometimes edit my photography multiple times. That’s the beauty of digital photography, it is very easy to create several variations of an image without incurring a huge cost, it’s just an investment of time. This morning I began with this image, taken at Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny:

ISO 800 22mm f/13 1/640sec

If you are a regular reader, you may remember this edit:

ISO 800 22mm f/13 1/640sec

I wrote about it a few months ago, that edit was about creating a vintage, almost impressionist feel. This morning I was revisiting with the thought of creating a black and white version. It’s an idea I had worked on a few months ago and come up with this version:

ISO 800 22mm f/13 1/640sec

I wasn’t crazy about it, so instead, I blogged about the color version and decided to let the black and white idea sit for a while. This morning I was back at it, and here is the result:

ISO 800 22mm f/13 1/640sec

Much better in my opinion. This time I started with a green filter, interesting because that is what improved the sky quite a bit. As I am writing this, it occurs to me that maybe I could have tried a graduated filter with this edit and that might have done quite nice things for the sky. I also darkened the whites in the image and lightened the blacks a bit.

With this edit, there were two things I really wanted to do. One was to improve the sky, make it more interesting. The second was to retain the reflections of the trees and vegetation in the water. Do you think that has happened with this edit? Feel free to leave a comment below. Have thoughts or tips on using a graduated filter on a black and white photo, I would be interested to hear about that as well.

Cheers!

Added to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Mirror Images or Reflections.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Masterpiece

A drive through Iowa on a beautiful Saturday featured this sky, a natural masterpiece:

ISO 100 4mm 0ev f/8 1/160

This photo is pretty straightforward.  It has not been edited.  However, I did specifically use my Canon Powershot Elph for this photo because it has a setting called “super vivid”.  So, it would be fair to say that I did my editing in-camera.

I drove through miles and miles of sky like this, not a bad way to spend the day.

Cheers!