Well, its a good thing the weather is improving because I have just about finished with editing and post processing for 2015. Just have to narrow down the best images of the year. This one may make the cut but it has some tough competition. This one was shot back in September at the butterfly garden in North Mountain Park.
In this image I wanted to highlight the Fresnel Lens at Cape Blanco Lighthouse. In the original image the lens is lost in shadow. So I went with the extreme detail extractor in Nik Color Efex Pro then added saturation and warmth and finally lightened the center to furhter highlight the lens. though it is more striking in the full resolution version I think it works and I’m thinking of having this one printed on metal.
This is one of those happy accidents. I was busily bracketing my exposures of the sunset when this dog came bounding into my viewfinder. Unfortunately the image with the dog was way overexposed in the sky and sun. But in going back through the images it occurred to me that I could blend the dog image with one that had a better exposure of the sky. For some reason I am into borders right now. It may look like I cut off the head of the shadow but actually the shadow sort of fades into the sand at that point. On my list for consideration as image of the year. But the competition is fierce!
I’m starting to get into this post processing challenge but I hope that within a few days I will be done with the 2015 files and it looks like the weather may improve enough to get outside and shoot something new. Meanwhile, I like the zen quality of flowing streams and the simplicity of black and white. I think the diagonal line through the image helps too.
I made good progress on the editing and post processing yesterday. I just forgot to post my favorite image. This Iris was shot back in May. I think one of my New Year’s resolutions has to be to do a better job of editing and processing at the time. Though sometimes it is easier to delete files after the emotional investment has dwindled.
Ok, I decided to take Christmas Day off and tack another day on at the end. Now, I’m back to editing. This one is from a June trip to Harney County. My first encounter with burrowing owls and we spent nearly two hours shooting them so I’d better have something good. Post processing involved a crop, a little saturation and a little sharpening.
I’m still furiously editing the 2015 images. This one was shot back in June at Shore Acres. This is a good example of when it is ok for the subject to be in the center of the frame. Post processing involved detail, saturation, denoise and sharpening.
I’m thinking I may have to change the name of this project to 100 days of post processing. Certainly plenty of material to work with. I found this old Oil Can at a logging museum near Chiloquin, Oregon last summer. I wanted to give it an old timey look suitable to it’s age and found just the effect I was looking for in Nik Silver Efex Pro. I added the border to spruce it up even more.
Another Grey, flat rainy day and I’m becoming convinced I have to chose my winter battles and fill in with new processing. This one was shot in January on a rare sunny weekend. I had been photographing the sunset but after it was over the sky blossomed into an Alpenglow that truely outdid the sunset. Yes the colors are real. In processing it I felt a painterly treatment would work best so took it into Topaz Impression and through a lot of presets before landing on Watercolor V and going. Ah, yes, that’s it.
I finally finished processing my pictures from the Oregon Coast trip today. I had to add a lot of detail to bring out some texture in the sky so it makes the lighthouse look like it needs paint but such is the nature of photographing at the Oregon Coast in winter. Believe it or not I also added a lot of saturation.to bring out the red roof.