Lightroom 5 HSL Panel: More Pop and Mystery ____ 2013/12

Last year (2012/09 Photo Tip), I wrote about using Lightroom Development tools to create Pop and Mystery in a photo. The gist: darken skies, selectively increase color saturation and increase contrast. Ansel Adams famously said the negative is the score, the print the performance. The RAW file you create in camera is a digital negative; […]

Photo Tip: Microsoft ICE for panoramas ____ 2013/09

For Windows users—Vista, XP, Windows 7 or 8—Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor), version 1.4.4, generates single or multi-row panoramas with a speed and accuracy that leaves Photoshop eating dust. It’s a free, no-frills, stand-alone application. I downloaded it last month after having some difficulty with Elements 10’s Photomerge Panorama. Re-loading Elements 10, as well as […]

Lightroom 4 Spot Removal Tool Tutorial ____ 2013/02

I had an excellent photo op last spring: a flicker nest only fifteen feet above the ground, with a clear view, and just two miles from home.  Because I was wary of disturbing the skittish birds, I photographed just a few times, in good light only, for periods no longer than an hour. Each visit […]

Photo Tip: Create Pop and Mystery in Lightroom 4 ____ 2012/09

A partly-cloudy western sky made me anxious as I approached the famed Mirror Lake at Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground, Mt. Rainier National Park. Could a mackerel-like sky develop? A lenticular cloud above the peak?  Would there even be sunset light on the mountain? This was my 10th or 11th trip to Indian Henry’s over many […]

Photo Tip: Ligthroom 3 Black and White ____ 2011/11

If Ansel Adams had had the darkroom power of Lightroom 3 to manipulate black and white imaging, he’d do a leaping victory dance like Jack Black in The Big Year. Ansel artfully dodged and burned his negatives, and controlled light in the field with filters, one filter per shot. Today, digital age tools boost control […]

Clipped Bird Wing Repair in Photoshop Elememts 8 ____ 2011/07

A throw-away image rises to four-stars. I was in Eastern Washington last week at a Williamson’s Sapsucker nest site. They’re interesting birds, and unlike other woodpeckers, the male and female look completely different. The male is a black and white typical of woodpeckers, but the female is brown with spectacular white barring on the wings. […]

Photo Tip: Hot Spots and Spotlighting ___ 2010/12

Shortly after a late October rainstorm, I visited the Columbia Gorge for some weekday waterfall shooting. Our first stop was Elowah Falls, a .8-mile hike up a boot-worn trail. After a half-hour of scouting, we got down to shooting at this photogenic spot. To my knowledge, the first photographer to get the “shot” from this […]

Dark Sky Drama with Lightroom 3 Adjustment Brush ___ 2010/08

One of my favorite and frequently-used post-shoot techniques is darkening the sky, adding drama to an outdoor image. A natural dramatic sky—vivid sunsets, ominous cumulonimbus or wispy cirrus clouds—are a lusted-for backdrop, but oh so fleeting. Much more common are plain gray skies—or a blue sky devoid of interesting clouds. In a typical photo, the […]

Photo Tip: Lightroom Collection Efficiency ___ 05/2009

Edited 3/15/2013. Once a month I attend a local Audubon bird photography meeting, held at the local Unitarian Church in Kirkland.  We bring in digital images on flash drives for show and tell, discuss field trips, and teach each other tips and techniques. This tip grew out a recent meeting.  A bunch of us use […]