All posts that are general photography comments or articles
This is an image taken at RSPB Bempton cliffs on a recent visit. The image was taken using an iPhone14. One thing I noticed was that the sea level rocks looked as if they had been badly composited in. I spent a lot of time trying to get the image to look as I remembered it with more contrast an colour in the rocky beach section of the image. This is the before and after.
At the beginning of the week, Liz and I spent a few days at Flamborough with a visit to #rspbbemptoncliffs. We managed to have an excellent #puffin visit with over 20 different Puffins and a first for me, a Short Eared Owl, that was kind enough to quarter a field for some time. The weather was kind to use on both days if a little windy, especially the walk at Flamborough Head (with the obligatory and excellent Fish and Chips) we even saw a few Seals
A frosty November morning walk with my camera through Goitstock Wood and along Hallas Beck to the waterfalls.
Another Before and After Lightroom and Photoshop Processing.
Below is a blender painting of a Kingfisher photographed at Chester Zoo. The image was created in Photoshop using a base photograph and Photoshop brushes. The brushes used were the mixer brush and the smudge brush both with various settings. Thanks to Mat Kloskowski and Jill Johnson for the techniques I ended up combining.
Most of my Photoshop work in the past few months has been exploring simple enhancements to my Images. My aim has not been to dramatically change the image nor create fine art, but to simply show the images off, especially the focus of the image. I have wanted to make the image to fit my memory of the moment I pressed the shutter. I’ve included below an image of a Fallow Deer at Dunham Massy.
The image was shot using my Canon 5D Mk4. Initial minimal processing was carried out in Lightroom, with a little sharpening using Topaz Sharpen AI. The image was then sent for processing in Photoshop 2024. Some cleaning up was carried out then aspects of the image were focussed on using the TK9 plugin. To keep my mind focused and to help make decisions I am grateful to the YouTube videos of Dave Kelly, Blake Rudis, Mat Kloskowski, and many others.
Other than using Tony Kuyper’s TK9 plugin and some of my actions I wanted all processing to use Photoshop tools rather than external processing plugins. Not that I mind using them if the requirement fit
The following three images have had tonal and colour contrast added to make them stand out a little more using Lightroom first then Photoshop and Photoshop Plug-ins from Tony Kuyper (the new TK9) and Blake Rudis.
The Cromer Cliff image was taken using my iPhone 14 and the others using my Canons MK5 II and MK5 IV.
Although the effects can be done using Photoshop on its own the Plug-ins do make it a lot easier. Often in less layers.
Another example of texture blending. In this example I have done little blending to the foreground, all the texture is in the background. The blending is on the edges only with a with a low opacity blend all over the foreground to just colour balance the image. (the original Squirrel was very grey)
I have lots of images that I like but are not either pin sharp or they will be low resolution due to the amount of cropping needed. Some images also have poor backgrounds that would involve lots of time to fix. So I have started experimenting with texture blending as a way of re-purposing these images
As staring inspiration for this I have to thank Mat Kloskowski of mattk.com for ideas on how to blend in textures and also how to create your own textures for this.
First night sighting of a Fox and Hedgehog this year and both together. The Fox learns not to sniff a Hedgehog too close.
