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 […]
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 […]
Can’t find your images? Step up to the Lightroom Filter Bar ___ 05/2010
I had a brief moment of alarm a few weeks ago while using the Lightroom 2 (3 looks to be the same) filter bar search tool, which is located above the thumbnail images in grid mode in the Lightroom Library (if you don’t see it, toggle the \ key and it will appear). I did […]
Lightroom 2 Spot Removal (on steroids) ___ 02/2010
The Spot Removal tool introduced in Lightroom 2 was a nice feature, part of set of tools that allowed manipulation of individual pixels on RAW files. Almost coincidently, though, manufacturers introduced dSLR cameras with self-cleaning sensors that worked so well Spot Removal was rarely needed for dust touch-up. I nonetheless use the tool frequently—for wildlife […]
Photo Tip: Backpacker Panorama Hardware __ 09/2009
A year ago I built a light-weight panorama tool out of wood. My hope was to make back-country panoramas. My dream was to rival the pixel count of high-end, medium-format digital backs, or scanned 4×5 film cameras without the weight, bulk or cost. Here in Washington State, I imagined Prusik Peak in the Enchantments, or […]
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 […]
Photo Tip: Gimme Dat DNG? ___ 03/2009
Like many folks, I wasn’t even aware of the DNG (Digital Negative) format for Raw files until I started using Adobe Lightroom in 2007. DNG is a publicly documented, open-source Raw format developed by Adobe, and a response to a potential format management quagmire that may evolve as camera manufacturers use and discard proprietary formats, […]