workflow

All photos available for print and licensing >

I’ve had a significant change in my workflow recently. For a while there, I was team photoshop only! Everything that I ever needed to do, I could do it in photoshop. Why would I need any other software?

Well, thanks to my friend, Paul for showing me the light and the benefits of using lightroom. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an expert at lightroom or anything. I’m still learning how to do a lot of things but it has significantly cut my editing time down, especially when I’m working on multiple images from a shoot. I can’t tell you how much easier things have been and I’m lovinnnn’ it.

Paddle Boats, Washington DC, national mall, swan paddle boats, tidal basin, cherry blossoms, flowers, spring, lightroom, photoshop, workflow,

Left: F5.6 at 1/500th of a second ISO 200 Right: F5.6 at 1/2000th of a second at ISO 200

So if you use lightroom, let me know some of your favorite features about it. I’ve been slowly learning the keyboard shortcuts and things like that too.

I’m still team photoshop though. There are things in that program that I don’t think lightroom can replace.

So most recently, I worked on this set of images from my little paddle boat session with my friend, Birch. The whole experience was so fun. Mostly because I was with good company. But I loved the different point of views we were getting. Luckily, the swan paddle boats were motorized and we didn’t actually have to paddle. Which was a good thing because all we had left was steering and taking good pictures. Good pictures, I think I can handle. Steering on the hand, was not as easy. LOL there were definietly moments where I thought we were going to run into a wall and I had to reach my hands out just in case. Luckily we didn’t.

Paddle Boats, Washington DC, national mall, swan paddle boats, tidal basin, cherry blossoms, flowers, spring, lightroom, photoshop, workflow,

Top: F5.6 at 1/800th of a second ISO 200 Bottom: F5.6 at 1/1250th of a second ISO 200

Definietly doing this again next year!

My settings for the main image is F5.6 at 1/800th of sec at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

On my quest to take more cherry blossom images this year, I thought I’d leave this one for you for the weekend. This image was taken in 2012.  This is what the cherry blossoms should look like. Beautiful puffy white clouds along these delicate, windy branches. A glorious morning only shared by those who didn’t mind waking up before the sun. Ripples along the water created by a bird, a duck or slight gust of wind.

LOL I can’t keep a straight face anymore. I tried to be poetic. I’ll stop now.

Yea… So I took this in 2012, I have another version of this here but this one is a brand new one. I did not process it until now. The first time I processed the original image it was in HDR. For some reason it created all these unnecessary lines and colors along the branches called chromatic aberration. Trust me it is a pain in the B-U-T-T to get rid of. Man. I think it took me almost 3 days of fixing before I could get it just right for a client to print. So this version is vertical and it’s a little bit of a different point of view. The colors are definietly not as saturated but I much prefer this version. What about you? Which one do you prefer? Here’s the link again to the first one. 

If you’re wondering, I stopped processing my images using HDR a while ago. I just realized I was spending all this unnecessary time processing and editing that I didn’t have to be. I am really enjoying my workflow now which is only photoshop. Nothing else. If you’re interested in learning more about it, check out my video here.

Have a great weekend everyone. May the flowers be dancing above your head like the cherry blossoms in 2012 were. LOL.