How do you tend to process your photos? They are all processed in a way that I find very compelling and natural. They have a look that I try to emulate in my photos as well. Do you tend to use recipes, or do you just make edits in Lightroom? Very nice work!
Ross Martin wrote:
from an evening stroll around Mount Dora, FL
Totally agree. All of them are consistent too. The night time scenes are somehow larger than life but completely natural at the same time.
kwoodard wrote:
How do you tend to process your photos? They are all processed in a way that I find very compelling and natural. They have a look that I try to emulate in my photos as well. Do you tend to use recipes, or do you just make edits in Lightroom? Very nice work!
kwoodard wrote:
How do you tend to process your photos? They are all processed in a way that I find very compelling and natural. They have a look that I try to emulate in my photos as well. Do you tend to use recipes, or do you just make edits in Lightroom? Very nice work!
---------------------------------------------
newyork wrote:
Totally agree. All of them are consistent too. The night time scenes are somehow larger than life but completely natural at the same time.
Kevin and Rich, thank you very much for that feedback!
I develop all my RAW files in Lightroom, and don’t use recipes - I like to work on one image at a time and use whatever development settings are needed to bring that particular composition to life. I shoot almost always in Daylight white balance for outdoor work because I want to record what the color tones actually were doing at that moment of exposure such as warm sunset colors or cooler colors in shade/overcast - I don’t want Auto WB correcting that out - and then in development I may tweak that WB as desired to bring about the subtle feel I want.
I select the color profile individually for each image, scrolling through the options and seeing which profile is going to work best for each composition. I’m seeking good color but not garish - I never use the saturation slider which easily becomes problematic, but vibrance can sometimes help bring out more of the subtle color tones.
I value a smooth tonal range so I avoid too much contrast and keep a careful eye on highlights, reducing them as needed to increase highlight details and avoid harsh glare. I will sometimes use the shadow slider to open up blocked up dark tones so they don’t distract the eye. I always avoid over-sharpening.
My goal is an end result that has appealing colors and tones but also feels natural, not ‘digital’ or over-processed, not artificial.
One more from this lovely Old Florida era hotel in charming Mount Dora. I chose the Nikon matching Camera Standard color profile because it looked best to me on this scene, I set highlights at -80 to reign in too much harsh brightness on that sunlit right edge, I increased WB by 200 points to 5300 to keep the shaded side of the building from going cool, and I used 10 points of clarity:
You process like I started to do last year. I decided that I wanted to process in a more timeless manner, and not use trendy techniques that are popular today. Well done!
Ross Martin wrote:
---------------------------------------------
Kevin and Rich, thank you very much for that feedback!
I develop all my RAW files in Lightroom, and don’t use recipes - I like to work on one image at a time and use whatever development settings are needed to bring that particular composition to life. I shoot almost always in Daylight white balance for outdoor work because I want to record what the color tones actually were doing at that moment of exposure such as warm sunset colors or cooler colors in shade/overcast (I don’t want Auto WB correcting that out), and then in development I may tweak that WB as desired to bring about the subtle feel I want. I also select the color profile individually for each image, scrolling through the options and seeing which profile is going to work best for each composition. I’m seeking good color but not garish (I never use the saturation slider which easily becomes problematic, but vibrance can sometimes help bring out more subtle color tones), and I value a smooth tonal range so I avoid too much contrast and keep a careful eye on highlights, reducing them as needed to increase highlight details and avoid harsh glare. I will sometimes use the shadow slider to open up blocked up dark tones so they don’t distract the eye. I avoid over-sharpening. My goal is an end result that has appealing colors and tones but also feels natural, not ‘digital’ or over processed.
One more from this lovely Old Florida era hotel in charming Mount Dora. I chose the Nikon matching Camera Standard color profile because it looked best to me on this, I set highlights at -80 to reign in too much harsh brightness on that sunlit right edge, and I used 10 points of clarity:...Show more →
I wouldn't have expected a 24-120 f/4 zoom to be any good at all for astro, but there were a couple of ripper auroras before I got my hands on a 20mm f1.8 so I shot them with the 24-120 and was pleasantly suprised.
It helped that they were among the strongest auroras I've seen, so f/4 was less of a limitation. 24mm just wasn't quite wide enough though.
GravelBen wrote:
I wouldn't have expected a 24-120 f/4 zoom to be any good at all for astro, but there were a couple of ripper auroras before I got my hands on a 20mm f1.8 so I shot them with the 24-120 and was pleasantly suprised.
It helped that they were among the strongest auroras I've seen, so f/4 was less of a limitation.
GravelBen wrote:
I wouldn't have expected a 24-120 f/4 zoom to be any good at all for astro, but there were a couple of ripper auroras before I got my hands on a 20mm f1.8 so I shot them with the 24-120 and was pleasantly suprised.
It helped that they were among the strongest auroras I've seen, so f/4 was less of a limitation. 24mm just wasn't quite wide enough though.
