Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I Learned: Enumclaw Sunset 08.21.11

I learned two things this week:

1. A photo plan should be flexible and willing to follow the light.
2. Lightroom makes me want to learn more!

As I mentioned in my last two posts, I spent Sunday evening photographing a glorious sunset. This was not my intention at the beginning of evening as I wanted to take some pictures at Nolte State Park. While the park is beautiful with the lake and the trees, the light just wasn't adding to the shot. I was disappointed and was just going to head home. On the way, though, I noticed the beautiful sky and the light changing minute by minute. I decided to stop and just see what the light was going to do. It was amazing. I am so glad I didn't give up. Sometimes the most stunning shot is right around the corner!

One of the shots I took as I watched the light was of Mount Rainier with the setting sun hitting it. I liked how it turned out SOOC, but it was missing a bit of highlighting in the sky and on the mountain.

Settings: ISO 100, ss 0.5sec, f/18 (full manual on tripod)

For the edit I played around with most of the basic settings and did a little noise reduction. I love how you can view before and after in Lightroom and how you can use the history to step back one or more steps to see what your changes did to picture. I love the ease of use and I love learning more about the program through tutorials. Especially Courtney's from Click it Up a Notch. Her videos are so helpful!


"Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow." – Imogen Cunningham


I do find that I sometimes don't know when to stop editing or how to do specific tasks like how to combine the sliders in sharpening and noise reduction to get it to do what I want. I would love feedback/critiques on this SOOC and edit. What works and what needs improvement? If you have any tips for when to stop editing and how to sharpen/noise reduce I would also love those.

Thank you for reading and commenting. I so enjoy learning from you!


Click It Up A Notch

5 comments:

  1. “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.” by Coco Chanel. This is something I always keep in mind when I'm editing. It's so easy to go over board and over edit. Remember to pull back :O) I know when I first learned about vignetting, I went bananas :O) I'm still embarrassed some of those pictures are still up on my site :O) I think you did a great job with the noise reduction. Personally, I don't use the sharpening tool. I just sharpen during export but do what you think looks best! One thing I may do is bump up your exposure just a smidge. I wouldn't do it too much b/c you don't want to lose that light. Just a thought! I love the angle you used!! Thanks for the shout out and I'm so glad to hear you enjoy the videos!!!

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  2. sometimes it's just a matter of turning around, I find I can be so focused on what's in front of me that I miss the beauty behind me.

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  3. Love the pink cloud and light reflected on the mountain. You composition is fantastic, I love that you framed the foreground with the grasses and put the mountain off to the right. I'm not sure if the grass is a little too light (in the edit), for me it competes a bit with the mountain for attention, but overall it gives the picture a really lovely light, so I don't know. Love this shot though, gorgeous!

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  4. Visiting from "Click it up a Notch"...I am not even going to attempt to give you any suggestions re: editing as I am a complete novice myself. But I can tell you that I love the touch of color in the pink cloud, and the hint of pink on the top of the mountain. Gorgeous.

    Kathy

    www.youllshootyoureyeout-kathy.blogspot.com

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Thank you for leaving your thoughts! I love reading your comments and critiques.