photoshop

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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.

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If you’re in the DC area, its definietly worth checking out Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in the summer time. It’s absolutely beautiful. There has to be hundreds of these pink lotus flowers in the ponds and the whole area is just filled with them. A photographer and nature lover’s dream. Although, I think the flowers may be all done for this year’s season. There’s always next year!

But the gardens are only open during certain hours and those hours are not at sunrise or sunset (the ideal time to shoot). It’s in the middle of the day, which is usually difficult to shoot. Most of the time, I’d try to find flowers that were blooming under some tree shade or something like that. This one was not. So I had to use my photoshop skills to really emphasize the mood I was feeling. I wanted all the concentration to be on the flower, to be in the spotlight. So I purposely made the surrounding areas darker than they are straight out of the camera. I also used luminosity masks to brighten the flower up a little more. Just doing those two alone really made the image pop a lot more and created some great contrast.

If you’re interested in learning more about my photoshop techniques, check out these video tutorials I created. This one is about luminosity masks. This one is about my complete photoshop workflow. Even if I’m not editing this particular image in the video tutorials, the same rules and principles apply. I will have to say that these videos are for those who are already comfortable with photoshop. You already have some basic skills and you just wanted to up your skill set a little more or just watch someone else’s workflow. If you had any questions or video suggestions, don’t be afraid to let me know!

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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.

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Do you remember earlier this year when I posted this picture?

It was taken on January 4th around 8a. I woke up early that morning to take sunrise images hoping for fog but didn’t see it. The sun rose and feeling a little discouraged, I walked back to my car. All of the sudden the sun light changed. I turned around and the fog I had hoped for appeared! I was already on my way home so the closest and easiest place for me to park and capture this was at the Tidal Basin. I ran like a mad woman with my camera bag and tripod. You probably saw my hair flipping up and down from a mile away. I didn’t care because it was totally worth it. First off, it was an incredibly beautiful morning. The weather was spring like temperatures in the middle of winter. When there were breaks in the fog, you could see that the sky was very blue. I’ve seen fog cover the Washington Monument before but never like this. Never with the little peak-a-boo of the tip of the monument and never with such blue skies. I stuck around for almost an hour trying to capture both the Washington Monument and Jefferson memorial with this fog. Its a morning that’d be hard to forget.
This is the non-cropped version of the first image I posted. So no, I wasn’t standing at the old post office. I wasn’t on an airplane. I wasn’t flying a drone. Just some good ol fashion photoshopping 🙂 Well, exciting news!!! Washingtonian has put this image in their March 2017 issue! How amazing is that! Its out on news stands now so I bought one for myself and 1 for my grandma, 1 for my mom, and basically every copy that I can find. So if you don’t actually see the issue in your grocery store then you know that I’ve been there.