To Photoshop...Stat!

World famous photographer Joe McNally recently reminded us of the virtues of getting photographs right in the camera.

"Photoshop is not an ER for grievously wounded pictures."

And he's right. But if you're not a world famous photographer with more skill than you can shake a stick at, you're more than likely to have some "injured" photos here and there.

I think of Photoshop as an Urgent Care for those little mistakes that tend to hurt your pride more than they do yourself.

Case in point:



The Great Sand Dunes at sunrise. The composition is fairly interesting, except for the stupid Porta-Potty in the foreground there. But the colors are a bit washed out, there doesnt seem to be enough contrast, it's not laying on the table dying, but it needs some help.

To Photoshop...Stat!

Drop the brightness a bit, increase the contrast, sharpen it a bit, increase the saturation just a touch...nothing too complex really. Oh, and get that damn Porta-Potty outta there!

And this is the result:




Yeah, it may not be a ER, but sometimes the Urgent Care is all you really need to bring out your work. The data is in there.

Photography...it's a family thing...

Emily takes some amazing pictures.

Quite often better than mine.

Which I would naturally chalk up to less beer intake, but I think honestly she drinks more beer than me. (It takes a big man to admit that, just so you know)

However, quite frequently, she doesnt have the time (or patience) to post process her work.

So, I took the liberty of doing a little post work on one of her amazing shots from New Zealand.

This was taken on the shores of Lake Tekapo, close to the famous Church of the Good Shepard. It seems to be a bit of a tradition for visitors to build a cairn out of rocks along the banks.

With just minimal effort, I was able to even out the exposure, showing the cairns, lake, mountains and sky, which would been quite difficult to do without shooting several shots at different exposures to blend into an HDR (High Dynamic Range) phot0. Even more post processing.... see where that's going?

Not to shabby, huh?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go polish off a beer or two to catch up to the little woman....