FOLLOWING THE CURVE (PART 2)

If this looks familiar you must have visited my blog a few days ago. Today I tried the same image as a black and white version. I had this in mind when I took the shot but later at home, in front of the computer screen, the play with the color contrast appealed to me as well. Now, with both versions on hand, I think the monochrome version supports the graphic impact of this photo better. The Z-shaped curve of the clouds and the edge of the field are better pronounced.

As much as I like the relativ new B&W presets in Adobe Lightroom Classic, for the finishing of this image I used the well trusted NIK Silver Efex Pro 2. In Lightroom I started with the same Camera RAW settings as for the color version, opened the photo as a Smart Object in Photoshop, and finally applied NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 as a filter. I still love the way how global and local adjustments interact with each other in any program of the NIK Suite. The final touch was made with a subtle dodging and burning layer in PS, mainly in the lower half of the photo.

‘ROMANCING’ A RAILROAD BRIDGE

Mississippi River, Swivel-Railroad bridge, Dubuque, Iowa -----

Some of my favorite subjects for architecture photography are the bridges across the Mississippi River. Unless it is a totally new subject that I haven’t shot before, there has to be a certain quality of light before I consider to take the camera out of the bag. This happened one evening earlier this month at the swivel railroad bridge in Dubuque. I had never made any close photos at the north side of the bridge and discovered just recently the access for this shooting location.

By the way, these bridges are a great subject to become familiar with new gear, like cameras, lenses, or teleconverters. Learning about depth of field, light fall off, sharpness, etc. in a controlled environment, but still with an interesting subject in front of the lens, is priceless (beats test shots in the backyard by far 😊).

This photo is another try to ‘romance’ my landscape photos with Macphun’s Luminar software. I still have a tear in my eye because the good old NIK collection is on it’s way out, but any time I gain more experience with Luminar I love it a little more. It is intuitiv for someone who has worked with Adobe Lightroom and NIK before, but I can see why it might be a little overwhelming in the beginning for someone who is new in post processing their images. There are a lot decisions that can be made how to process an image and I will be the first one to admit, overdoing it is very easy…

THE LEARNING CURVE

The buildings and structures I photographed a week ago at the Motor Mill Historic Site are a great subject for experiments with the new software plug-in, Macphun’s Luminar. One of the best parts of the old NIK collection was Silver Efex Pro 2, the software I have used for all black and white conversions since many years. Knowing that SEP 2 will not work in the future, because Google has decided not to support and update it anymore, I needed to find a new solution for my B&W work. I like the results other photographers get with Luminar so far and I try to find a workflow with this software that works for my style of photography. The key for a fast post process is creating presets that can be used as a starting point for other pictures. It is a little time consuming in the beginning, but it is part of the learning curve and with every image and stored preset the process becomes faster and is more fun. I rather spend time behind the camera than in front of the computer screen…😊

WORKING WITH LUMINAR

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada ----

We have this typical end-of-July-weather right now, very warm and way to humid for my taste. I haven’t been out much for photography this week, except for the daily “yard exercise” with the birds that hang around the house. But of course, I don’t want to post about our house wrens or hummingbirds every other day.

About a month ago I reported about trying out Luminar from Macphun for the post process in my landscape photography. Well, I really like it so far and decided to use it as a Photoshop plug-in instead of the old NIK collection, that will not be supported by Google in the future anymore. The Macphun website has lots of short videos that make it easy to learn about all the different filters and techniques. Luckily there are enough untouched pictures on my hard drive to explore the ins and outs of Luminar. And this is what I do right now to beat the “hot-summer-blues”…😊

This photo was made on a dark and stormy day in Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario, Canada. Lake Superior was in a “bad mood” that day back in September 2016. The dominant color was gray, and all the other colors appeared muted. Luminar helps to improve the tonal contrast and reveal the colors as they appeared in reality. I still have a long way to go with this new software but I like what it does for my landscape photography so far.

WORKFLOW FOR LANDSCAPES

Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa --------    

It was quiet here in the blog for a week. We had good friends from Germany visiting and although the camera was always with me while we showed them Dubuque and the Mississippi Valley, there was no time to write a new blog post.

Thursday evening we went for a cruise on the Mississippi River, followed by some beer and food on the deck of “Catfish Charlie’s”, a popular restaurant at the river. I could not stay in my seat when the setting sun put some magic on the clouds and boats in the marina… 😊

For this photo my usual landscape post process workflow was applied to the RAW file. I start in Adobe Lightroom for small corrections of the shadows and highlights if necessary. Many landscape photos benefit from the use of the Dehaze slider and sharpening and noise reduction are of course mandatory. If necessary “spot removal” is applied to get rid of any spots from sensor dust in the camera. I than open the file in Photoshop as a Smart Object, a layer that has the RAW data embedded. This allows me to make changes at a later time in case I change my mind about any previous adjustments. The NIK Color Efex Pro 4 plug-in is still my best friend when it comes to romance the image. Most of the time I enhance the tonal contrast, color contrast, and darken the edges of an image slightly. There are tons of filters in CEP but I only use what benefits the photo. It is easy to overdue things. 

Google, who owns NIK, has recently announced that they will not longer support this product. With other words it may stop working when a new operating system comes out or Adobe makes changes to their software. This is the reason that I currently test Macphun’s software Luminar. I use it the same way as the NIK collection, I apply it as a filter to my smart object. This is a non-destructive way to work with the photo and if I want to make changes at a later time, I can always revert to the original file and settings. Many other photographers write good things about it and have already replaced the NIK plug-ins with Luminar.

The last step in my workflow is “border police”, the removal of anything around the edges that distracts from the subject, like a small branch sticking in from the side or a piece of paper that is just an eyesore in the photo. This all sounds like a lot of work for anybody who is new to post processing but usually I do not work longer than 5 - 10 minutes on one of my landscape pictures. The trick is to work with presets that I have created or copied from other photographers. I use them in Lightroom, Photoshop, and with the NIK software. Luminar is new to me. It comes with a number of presets but finding the right settings for my own photography may take a little time...

RETRO AND CLOUDS (AND SOME FINISHING THOUGHTS)

Orlando, Florida

Looks like vacation again, doesn’t it? No, I just returned from GraphExpo, the annual trade show of the printing industry in North America. This year it was for the first time in Orlando, Florida. Attending the show as an exhibitor does not leave much time to enjoy the city or visit any of the big entertainment places, like Disneyland or SeaWorld.

Busy places like Orlando are anyway not my cup of tea and I’m definitely not a fan of the heat and humidity down in Florida. But there is one weather related feature I really like. Clouds and giant thunderheads showed up every day and this can always lead to some interesting pictures. The photo was made through the glass of my hotel room window in the Cabana Bay Beach Resort - Universal Orlando, which features a retro theme that takes you back to the 1950’s and 60’s. 

These were not the most impressive clouds we saw, but I like how the twilight goes together with light and colors of the hotel. The RAW file was developed in Adobe Lightroom and afterwards the photo was finished as a smart object in Adobe Photoshop, with some filters of Google’s NIK collection for tonal and overall contrast applied. Usually I do noise reduction in Lightroom if necessary, and that works pretty well for me. Shooting with ISO 500 and through the thick glass of a window created more noise in the picture than I like. As a remedy I used NIK’s Define 2 noise reduction filter and that took care of the problem.