One big kayak trip, no backpacking, much bird photography most often by kayak. A few pika shoots. I only sought landscapes a couple times, pretty dismal really. But I like what I got this year while staying pretty close to home. Washington State has so much to offer photographers. All images were shot with either […]
One-Step Merge 2018_11
Adobe updated Lightroom Classic CC last week (October, 2018). Two additions of interest to me are the One-step Merge to Panorama and the new Color/Luminance Range Mask. The One-step Merge creates HDR panoramas with a single select and click, where beforehand you needed the separate steps of creating multiple HDR images, and then select and […]
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. […]
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: A Matter of Numbers ___ 02/2009
If you work at composition—and what photographer doesn’t—you’re probably aware that number is a compositional element, and a powerful one. Consider that composition is a way of organizing a photograph. The best compositions paring down, simplifying, gett to the essence. It puts a stamp on who you are as a photographer.Number is one of many […]
Digital Thinking: A Vertical from a Horizontal __ 01/2009
For many of us, shooting verticals takes a conscious effort. The comfortable grip of most cameras—especially most dSLR’s—induces “landscape” shots. Only high-end dSLR’s have a built-in vertical grip that helps make “portrait” shooting routine. Still, rotating the camera 90° involves either a thought like “I should get this in a vertical for its cover potential”; […]
Tutorial: Adobe Elements 6 Panoramas ___ 08/2008
Edited 3/15/2013. Prior to Elements 6, on the rare occasion that I made panoramas, I stitched images manually. A big problem was that automated stitch programs produced banding in the sky, often accompanied by bizarrely-merged foregrounds. But when I saw a Mark Galer example (Adobe Photoshop Elements 6: Unleashing the hidden performance of Elements) demonstrating […]
Photo Tip: Digital Thinking __ 07/2008
Edited 3/15/2013. Photographing with today’s digital SLR’s is the stuff of dreams: sub-$1000 cameras, instant feedback, cost-free shooting, on-the-spot ISO change, image quality superior to 35mm film. One consequence is we shoot way more, but taking advantage of digital isn’t just filling 32-GB cards in the hope of getting the shot. As always, it still […]
Tutorial: Floral Portrait Conundrum ___ 07/2007
When shooting wildflower or floral portraits — pictures of single flowers or small groups of flowers — it’s often difficult to achieve both sharpness in the flower(s) and pleasing, poster-like, out-of-focus backgrounds. In the past I ususally went for the pleasing background, picking the most important floral part, like the stigma or edge of a […]