Spring Concert

Thoughts on Editing

I've been working alot in Lightroom this week, trying to get more familiar with it, and developing a workflow. I have also selected a few photos and worked for a long time on them, trying to find good editing style for me.

I like photos that have bright, vibrant colors. Having a photo completely in focus is a must for me, and I really try not to crop off limbs. I want my photos to look real, not all hazy and dreamy, but also not over-edited.

I really admire photographers who do not edit. For one thing, they don't have to spend nearly as much time processing, and they also can spend more time learning how to use their camera to the best of their ability.

It is my goal to get everything right in camera....white balance, focus, cropping, and other things, like making sure there is nothing I don't want in the photo. 

Look at the photo below... 

In the before version, you can see the tip of a red scooter handle right next to his head. I really didn't notice that when I was shooting the photo, but when I went in to edit, it bothered me. I tried to edit it out, but it kind of failed (as you can see :P). I want to notice those kinds of things, and fix them before I take the photo.

Anyway, that was a little bit rambling and I don't know if you got anything out of it. 

Oh well. Enjoy the photos!

HDR Effect?

Do you remember my post about HDR?

Well, since then, I've doing more researching and reading about HDR.

And I've found out how to simulate the HDR look in Lightroom.

I took some photos of beautiful sunsets while on a trip last week,

and I decided to try something.

 You see this photo? The sky is a lovely color. but the waves are so dark...what if I lightened the photo so that the waves are exposed properly...?

Ta da! But look at the poor sky. Washed out. :( So much for that.

But then I remembered something. Lightroom has this awesome tool called "adjustment brush".

You can set exposure, clarity, sharpness, saturation, etc, and then "paint" it on the photo wherever you want it. 

So:

I took the adjustment brush and lowered the exposure just a tad. 

Then I painted over the top quarter of the photo, where the sky is. 

See? It is darker. The photo is way more balanced, and it has an HDRish look to it!

Isn't that awesome!?

Naturally, I went crazy with it, and had a ball editing these next photos. :D

Those stars made my day :)

Okay, now you go try! It isn't hard. If you don't have Lightroom, don't despair. Look around a bit, and you might find other options. I've heard good things about GIMP, a free photo editing program. 

I'd love to see your edits! 

(Feel free to leave a comment with a link. :))

Home Sweet Home

 

I have been gone for a week on a service week/mission trip, and I'm working on getting photos imported and edited to share with you. :)

It was a wonderful time of sweating, serving, and growing in Christ with an amazing group of high school students. 

 

(But it's great to be home again!)

Golden Sky

 I've been enjoying editing these photos the past day or two. They had a really "golden" look to them, and I had fun playing with some overexposure... Let me know what you think. :)

Have a lovely week!

Whiskers & Paws

Yup. More photos of the cat. ;) 

(I need people to photograph!)

Whiskers

*lick*

Aren't those eyes cool!? True cat's eyes. :)

Look at that paw. And that claw...

:)

*meow*

*meoorw*

Lovely weekend to you all. :)

Boats at the Wharf

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days...I started off the new year with a pretty nasty fever/cold, but I'm doing much better now :) 

Here are a few photos I took last week. Enjoy!

On a happy note, my first photo shoot is tomorrow morning.
I am very excited, (and a bit nervous) about getting to photograph three adorable sisters. :)

Have a lovely day!

Histogramia

 Welcome to the world of histogramia.

Here I will teach you what a histogram is, and how it helps you take better photos.

 Try not to get confused.*

What's a histogram?

It looks like this:

 To quote Wikipedia:

An image histogram is a type of histogram that acts as a graphical representation of the tonal distribution in a digital image. It plots the number of pixels for each tonal value. By looking at the histogram for a specific image a viewer will be able to judge the entire tonal distribution at a glance.

Blah, blah, blah. ;)

In English, an image histogram is a graph that shows you all the different shades in an image from pure white to all black. So histograms differ depending on the photo.

(p.s.: Usually you can find a setting in your camera's menu that says "histogram." Just turn that setting on to see a histogram when shooting! Refer to your manual if you need help...) 

Okay, now you know what a histogram is. 

But how does it work? 

Take a look at this photo:

(yep, same one I posted yesterday :) )

See that there is quite a range of tones in this photo, from the almost white sun, to the dark shadows in the bottom half of the photo.

Quoting Darcy from 31 Days to a Better Photo: 

In a histogram the edges are the most important part.

Okay. The left side of this histogram represents the darker places in the photo. And the right side represents the light spots.

Keeping that in mind, look at the far left side of the histogram. See that grey strip running up the side? That represents the dark places in the photo, which are also the blue shaded places in the below photo.

There the histogram is showing you those places are completely black. You can't "retrieve" them, or lighten them up, even in a good editing program because the camera just captured pure black. 

 

This is what would happen if you tried to lighten those places up:

If you look closely, you can see areas that are just plain black. They aren't retrievable...you can't lighten them to see more detail.

And same with the white parts of the photo:

The white parts of the photo are shaded red... it's just the sun in this photo. But I can't darken the photo to be able to see the round shape of the sun, or see more shadows.

It can't darken the part that is completely white, because the camera didn't capture any detail there but plain white!

On the right side of the histogram you can see a little grey going up the side of the histogram. That represents the white part, the sun in the above photo.

Now, in the sunrise photo, (the good one, the first photo I posted) it was okay for me to have "irretrievable" places that were completely light or completely dark. I liked the photo that way... I didn't need to lighten or darken those places.

But in a photo like this...

Poor flower :(

it's NOT good! 

You don't want a lovely orange flower overexposed to the point of being white. You won't be able to fix it, even in a fancy editing program.

 When I try to darken it this is what happens:

Poor, poor flower :'(

Now, not all photos are as drastic as this. There may be a time when you are taking photos, and they look fine on your camera, but then you look at them on the computer, and you realize that there were places that were way too dark or too light. That is when the histogram comes in handy. You can read it and see quickly if places are too dark or light

(for the 1st flower photo)

As I quoted before, the edges are the most important part. If you have strips (aka pixels) running up the left side, you know some places are irretrievably dark, and if you have pixels running up right side, you know some places are irretrievably light. 

So watch your histograms, friends! 

:)

*if you read this whole thing without getting confused, brownie points to you!