Photography and the Art of Seeing

  DxO PhotoLab 8.5.1 Elite Edition - For the passionate photographer. To answer that question, one needs to evaluate the need for image editing software. A lot of photographers use the Adobe Subscription and in particular, the Photography Subscription where you get amongst other pieces of software, Photoshop, Bridge & Lightroom. The question you need to ask yourself is; "Do I really need all that is offered by Adobe in order to edit my photographic images to my liking?" The next question is: "Do I want to deal with a monthly subscription or do I just want to buy a software license and be done with it, only updating if I really need to?" If you are working in the industry and need to collaborate with others in the post production world, then maybe you do need the an Adobe subscription of some sort as most photographic studios require these programs but, if you don't fit into this category of photographer, then maybe something like DxO's PhotoLab 8 Standar...

Creating Monotones, Duotones, Tritone and Quadtones Inglis Falls - Bruce Peninsula - Niagara Escarpment  Same image as above but with a very slight Tritone effect applied - Subtle but noticeable. This is a side-by-side comparison between the two. Further to my previous post (The Art of Black & White Photography - Part 1), I went and created a Duotone version of this waterfalls image. Well, to be more accurate, a Tritone, which makes use of three separate colours as opposed to a Duotone which makes use of two.  In Photoshop we also have the options for Monotone (one colour) and Quadtone (four colours) but this entire process is generally referred to as making Duotones - probably because that is the menu choice option in Photoshop and once you are in the Duotone colour space you can choose how which of the four colour options you want. Now, there are some similar methods of creating these Duotone-ish images in Photoshop that don't require you to switch colour models but in m...

  So I was up early this morning, for one reason or another, and I decided to hunt through a randomly chosen folder from way back in time, 2007 to be exact, and I came across some images taken on a trip up to Tobermory. This particular image is a combination of 3 hand held vertical shots to test out Photoshop's Photomerge feature. Using this technique allowed me to create a larger image that I cropped square. As I was going through all of this I started to think that it might look good in black & white. Now, I know there are as many ways to convert a colour image into greyscale as there are photographers out there, well almost, converting images. This is not the topic of this post but will be in a later post. I am also thinking of toning this black & white print digitally in a somewhat similar fashion that Ansel Adams did in the wet darkroom. Ansel Adams put his gallery prints through a selenium toning bath process as a final touch. If you are seriously interested in learn...

  DxO PhotoLab 5 Series Noise Reduction at it’s finest. In this short article I will examine the 3 Noise Reduction options found in DxO PhotoLab 5. Yes, I know version 6 is out but for my uses version 5 meets my needs although I believe there is one more Noise Reduction option in version 6.  I am going to compare 4 separate versions of this image I took while photographing an AHL game for ProHockeyNews.com. This image was shot at ISO 3200 on my Nikon D3s at the Air Canada Centre now known as the Scotiabank Arena which is home to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The only reason I mention this is if I was shooting this at the Toronto Marlies’ home ice, which is not as brightly lit, I would have set the ISO to between 4,000 and 5,000 which would have produced more digital noise. We are going to look at a couple of areas in this image to see how the noise reduction affects different parts of the image. I am going to open four copies of this image;   1) with no noise reduction whatsoe...

The Map Module: What is the actual purpose of the Map Module in Lightroom Classic? I have Googled this question several times over the years and always end up with the same search results. Which you can see in the attached screen shot. I have to admit, for the most part, I don’t get it. The recurring search result is “It’s something fun to do in Lightroom”. Well, if that is the main purpose, I am not interested in it. But … and there is always a but.   If I am contracted by the Tourism Dept of any Government be it local, Provincial/State or Country, to photograph tourist attractions or conservation areas to name two uses, I would have to either have a GPS option in my camera or the ability to add those GPS coordinates after capture … otherwise I will not get that contract. Government tourism departments of any level like to promote their areas of interest to potential visitors from all over the world. And when they post an article which include photographs, they want the reader to ...

  This is yet another NHL 2022 Heritage Classic image of Craig Anderson sprawling and diving backwards in an attempt to prevent #25 Ondřej Kaše of the Toronto Maple Leafs from scoring a goal. Unfortunately for Anderson, he wasn’t able to get back in time. Ondřej Kaše scores the opening goal in the second period of the game. #Fujifilm , #FujiFilmx_ca , #FujifilmCamera , #FujifilmLens , #FujifilmPhotography , #FujifilmPhoto , #FujifilmXSeries , #FujifilmXT4 , #FujifilmXT3 , #FujifilmXT2 , #Fujifilm_Street , #FujifilmX , #FujifilmX_US , #FujifilmXPro1 , #Fujifilm_NorthAmerica , #Fujifilm_US , #FujifilmStreet , #FujifilmStreetPhotography , #FujiXSeries , #FujiLove , #Fujinon , #FujiLovers , #FujiXLovers