My Home Sweet Home » Lightroom

Loveliest of Trees

Dawn — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:56:28 +0000

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

~A. E. Housman (1859–1936)

Loveliest of Trees is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Lightroom Edits for “The Onion”

Dawn — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:31:35 +0000

Sometimes I have a very clear plan with photography: I see something and have a vision for what I hope to create as the finished product, working with settings, composition, and post-processing to try to achieve it. Other times it’s more random; something about a photograph catches my eye and makes me want to see what it can become.

I love to play in Lightroom.

Thursday morning I chopped a green pepper and an onion for a pot of chili. The sliced peppers were cute—like big green commas—so I arranged them and got my camera. After I sliced the onion I looked down and saw this formation—no staging needed—and marveled at the form and symmetry of something as mundane as the vegetables on my cutting board.

I thought you might be interested in the creative process and how the photo evolved from original to finished image.

Here’s the original RAW image. I started with the JPG (I really didn’t know I would get so carried away), but the contrast details of the onion layers just weren’t there, so I switched to the RAW file.

The first thing I did was crop it a little tighter and use Spot Removal to erase the chunks of leftover green pepper from the cutting board. Ultimately, the spot removal didn’t matter, but I didn’t know it at the time.

My kitchen counter is blah, so I decided to try black and white, which I liked. I used the Lightroom preset B&W Creative – Look 2, which comes with the program. Exposure and contrast were increased (drag sliders to the right).

The left side of the photo was more shadowed and I liked the way it looked with a darker background, so I decided to use the adjustment brush to decrease the exposure of everything but the onion. Bye bye splotchy counter top and knife in the upper right corner!

Here’s a screen shot from Lightroom. I’ve circled two important boxes that were checked: “Auto Mask,” which does a great job of selecting what you want and not what’s next to it (just hold down the “option” key on a Mac to erase parts of the mask if you mess up) and “Show Selected Mask Overlay” at the bottom, which made the mask red and easy to see while I painted it.

Here are the before and after shots together:

I love it when a photo evolves into something more than I imagined.

{Lightroom is my favorite photo editing program. It retails for $300, but if you qualify for education pricing—homeschoolers, this includes you—you can get it for as little as $89. Click the Lightroom affiliate ad below, and then the “More Stores” dropdown menu will take you to the Education Store on Adobe’s website.}

Lightroom Edits for “The Onion” is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

iHeartFaces: Best Face Photo of 2010

Dawn — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:11:27 +0000

This week’s theme at iHeartFaces is “Best Face Photo of 2010.”

If I had to choose a photo from 2010 that is most compelling to me, it would be this one of my youngest daughter at a Braves’ game this summer. We were on the very top row of the stadium, safely tucked away from the sun, but in a virtual wind cloud as it swirled around us there.

iHeartFaces: Best Face Photo of 2010 is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Straight No Chaser at Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Dawn — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 06:45:02 +0000

It wasn’t until Sunday evening that I realized I’ve been in the audience for every Straight No Chaser Atlanta concert. My husband, 15-year-old son, 14-year-old daughter, and I attended this one. My family hearts SNC.

One of the greatest things about an SNC concert, besides the music, is their open policy regarding photography and video. An announcement was made at the beginning: although the venue usually prohibits recording of any kind, it was allowed for this show.

This is so smart. If I attend your concert with my camera and I like you, which of these things will happen:

I’ll take tons of pictures and hopefully make you look really good.
I’ll post them all over Flickr, my blog, and Facebook, giving you free publicity.
I’ll tweet and Facebook links to these things.
I’ll sell the photos, get rich, and retire.
Everything but #4.

The answer: #5.

I was raised by musical parents with strong opinions about the way performers should and shouldn’t dress. Performing in suits—apparently made of “65% polyester and 35% shine”—equals respect for the audience.

Since I’d met the guys last year at a meet-and-greet and talked with them after all their Atlanta concerts—as any fan is able, since they sign autographs after each show—some recognized me and remembered my name, momentarily boosting my waning cool factor with my starstruck teens.

Thanks, guys, you ROCK!

Straight No Chaser blends old, new, and Christmas songs, choreography, and humor delivered with a lot of energy. Plus they’re cute, which never hurts. There were lots of fresh songs in this show, so I hope there’s a new album in the works.

If Straight No Chaser comes to your town, do yourself a favor and go see them.

{Disclosure: Tickets provided by Atlantic Records. Review and opinions provided by me.}

Straight No Chaser at Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Sometimes Less is More

Dawn — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 16:53:28 +0000

We’re not always consistent in our Christmas gift giving. Because we don’t pay for gifts on credit, each year is different. Last year we told our kids to be prepared for a slim Christmas, but they thought it was one of the best.

How?

When there’s less to spend, every dollar counts. Shopping becomes smarter. More intentional.

Celebrating Christmas properly involves more than what’s under the tree. One of the greatest things you can do now—or any time of year—is build traditions, the cement of family memories.

Ours include:

Christmas chili (because I can only wake up before dawn and cook a 20+ pound turkey one day of the year)
The kids open a movie for an early gift at bedtime on Christmas Eve, and watch it on Christmas morning before getting us out of bed (sly, aren’t we?)
Life Savers Sweet Story Books in the stockings (Santa always brought them to my sister and I, too)
Cheese Spaghetti (worthy of Thanksgiving and Christmas)
Christmas day outing (sometimes we go to the movies; last year it was bowling)

New traditions or things we do some years:

Jesse Tree (we’re behind, but I love this!)
Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls (must make this week)
Visit the official White House Christmas tree, in transit, on Thanksgiving night

Sometimes I’m guilty of losing myself in the flurry of the season, and fail to ensure that we remember just what—or rather who—it is we’re celebrating.

What Christmas traditions does your family keep?

[In case you were wondering: I shot a senior yearbook photo Friday morning, and my 11-year-old daughter insisted that our dog have a Christmas photo shoot on the white seamless, too. Cute, huh?]

insure

Sometimes Less is More is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Some Links for Your Veterans’ Day

Dawn — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 05:46:53 +0000

We spent a long Thursday at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, gazing, analyzing, awed. For Wednesday, my hope is to awaken tired children and tired me and attend our county’s Veterans’ Day celebration with a small batch of handwritten thank yous in hand.

Although one or more of the kids have participated in the program the last few years—which of course meant we had to attend—this year I’m motivated by the need to honor those who’ve served our country, and the fact that my camera yearns to shoot this event like few others.

Veterans’ Day 2008

I have two posts up on other sites this week:

25 Years and Counting at (in)courage
Veterans’ Day: A Meaningful Photo Opportunity at Blissfully Domestic

If you’re not afraid of crying like a baby, hyperventilating, and running out of Kleenex, read these two posts by Ann Voskamp and examine blogging with fresh light:

Candy and Costumes

Dawn — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 03:14:51 +0000

Because that’s really what it’s all about, right?

(Did you love Pippi when you were a kid? I sure did.)

Candy and Costumes is a post from: My Home Sweet Home
© 2012 My Home Sweet Home | All rights reserved

Vision Refined

Dawn — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:48:03 +0000

One our recent anniversary trip, I had a particular goal while we were in Cades Cove: take a do-over of a shot I made there on an earlier visit, just 2 months after I’d gotten my first DSLR.

I remember the time clearly. It was a period of intense study—Scott Kelby’s 1st 2 digital photography books lived in my camera bag—but also frustration. Time, research, and practice are required to become familiar with your camera; understand not only how to manipulate the settings, but also how they interrelate; and compose photos (which is more than just technique, it involves developing your own personal style).

When I decided to recreate my original photo—with a better camera and more time, research, and practice under my belt—I never considered the possibility that the original vision was flawed or might have changed with time.

Here is the original:

I like the concept of the dark, empty room in the old historic home, white curtains fluttering in the breeze, but looking at the metadata is interesting—like an algebraic equation gone wrong—ISO, aperture, exposure compensation all competing with each other rather than working in harmony.

When I walked into the same room last week, the curtains were no longer hanging loose, but tied. Whether exposing for inside or outside the room, it was all blah, unsatisfying.

Leaving the room, I felt disappointment. In another small room, however, I found an old barrel, cracked, aged, textured.

Looking chronologically at the pictures, I can feel the shift from old vision to new: focus on the window; focus on the barrel; focus on the light, and how it falls on the barrel.

This was the last photo shot in the house, the moment I knew I’d found it.

Processing

Detail and age were my goals for the final image. In black and white processing I tend to prefer high contrast: dark darks, light lights, less in-betweens. This can be especially flattering in portraits.

What I wanted here was exactly the opposite effect: detail. One of my favorite Lightroom presets, Noir Film from makelightreal.com, was the perfect choice. It has a way of sliding into the crevices of a photo, drawing out nuances of shape and texture. See?

And finally I achieved my vision. Refined.

iHeartFaces Week 39 (year 2): Chalk

Dawn — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:37:37 +0000

This week’s theme at iHeartFaces is “Chalk.” These are from a maternity shoot three weeks ago. I think Anna looks amazing considering this was taken 9 days before her due date. She looks so serene; actually, she and Ben both do.

Her sweet girl is now nearly 2 weeks old.

She wrote their final list of baby names on the sidewalk in chalk.

And the winner? Emma. :-)

JPG vs. RAW

Dawn — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 06:09:11 +0000

I first started shooting in RAW a little over a year ago, mostly because I should. What was understood in theory, however, took time to be grasped in reality.

At first, Lightroom stacked the JPG and RAW files on top of each other. The JPG (which is what you see on the back of your camera) is what I saw when initially viewing the image in Lightroom. Seconds later it looked like it had been whacked with an uglify filter: the RAW file was “showing.”

I was horrified. Why was I shooting RAW when it looked so icky?

Once I learned how to separate the two files (this is one of many areas where I am thankful for the guidance of Alan Hess, a generous and invaluable friend), my instinct was to still edit the JPG. Its starting point usually looked closer to the end result I sought, plus it was familiar ground after shooting in JPG only for so long.

(If your RAW files are being stacked upon import in Lightroom, go to Lightroom> Preferences> General tab, and check the box that says “Treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separate photos.”)

I usually apply one of Matt Kloskowski’s Nikon Auto Enhance Presets when importing RAW files, which dispels some of the initial blahs and gets me to a better starting point. Most images need increased exposure and contrast (lovin’ that new Lightroom tone curve, too).

There’s just so much more data to work with in the RAW file. While I always grasped that in theory, time has proven the benefit and the need of it, like this past weekend in Hilton Head.

Photography on the beach is a tricky thing! Shooting wide open, which is my norm, results in blown out photos. I’ve heard to dial down your exposure compensation for snow, but maybe it’s a good idea for sun and sand, too. :-)

As you can see in this unedited (except for that Auto Enhance import preset) photo of Holley and Stephanie, the JPG has almost no detail (ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/250th of a second, if you’re interested).

In the RAW, however, it’s there: sand, water, sky. That file has so many more possibilities.

I’m shooting RAW + JPG, which eats up a lot of memory on my external drives. For photos that will only be used in a blog post, the JPG is often just right and I’ll use it as-is or with minor tweaks. If I’m really going after a file though, it almost always occurs with the RAW image now.

What about you? Do you shoot JPG? RAW? Both?

(or are you saying, “What is she talking about?” which I totally get, too) ;-)