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| Smallford Pit: out-of-camera jpeg. 1/640 sec ~ f/4.0 ~ ISO 80 |
and after:
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| Smallford Pit: Post-processing in Lightroom 3 |
Amazing the difference a bit of treatment in Lightroom 3 can make. An almost HDR-like affect, purely by a couple of graduated exposure adjustments.
Taken on a cycle ride along the Alban Way.
I like seeing what your blog has morphed into over here, Andy. Nicely organized with some great photography. And how I wish I had a decent monitor. (I am constantly fiddling with the shifting calibration on this one.)
ReplyDeleteOoooh, a visitor - that's a rarity these days!
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea, nice to have you drop by :) Thanks for the compliments (I always have to check whether that should be an 'i' or an 'e' in the middle..), although I'm not sure they're justified. This blog is dithering around, not quite sure what it's supposed to be, and it feels to me it's not really anything much. But I don't want to abandon blogging completely, and without many words to say, pictures make as good a way as any of keeping a faint pulse going.
Given that I needed a new monitor anyway, paying a bit extra for a decent one wasn't too painful and makes a HUGE difference - but I'm really grateful that I was able to borrow a proper colour calibration device. To buy, they cost even more than the monitor!
Incidentally, something I only discovered recently is that colour accuracy also depends on the browser - have you ever tried looking at the same source material, on the same monitor, in 3 different browsers? It's a never-ending struggle to get it right!
I was hovering between using Aperture 3 (since I use a Mac) or Lightroom 3, both of which I have. Aperture has a much better, intuitive interface and setting up the files and folders makes so much sense. But it is slow as the Dickens and constantly hangs. So I've decided to go whole hog with Lightroom 3 and really learn how to use it. So much to still get started on!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen Aperture, so I can't judge how it compares. I've only really scratched the surface of what can be done with Lightroom. The library module isn't as user-friendly as it might be, but the develop module seems fine. I really should be more disciplined about how I organise and index my photos - yet I seem to able to maintain a visual memory of thousands of them and find them without any trouble. I wonder if that's normal or unusual?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's normal, but I can remember every photo I've ever taken, right back to childhood. I know where and when I took them, too. Finding them in my computer files is another matter though. It's not visual so I tend to forget where they are. For finding images I use gBrowser (mac only). I hear ACDSee is supposed to be very good for Windows.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I use Lightroom now for cataloguing and post-processing, I still keep Picassa running in parallel as an easy-to-use visual index, with everything accessible via scrolling two windows on a single screen. And, like you, I can remember right back to those childhood photos - taken, in my case, on B&W 127 roll film. A lot has changed since then :)
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