ramblings

Lightroom is for Photographer's who take the picture correctly ... REALLY???

Had to share this and to ask your thoughts...

So my most recent video which is only 9 minutes long is all about Color and which Color Space (sRGB , Adobe RGB , ProPhoto RGB ) to use for Photography ... Editing , Printing , Sharing , Posting on the Web ... Comments have been fantastic BUT one posted yesterday stopped me in my tracks; this is it...

Photoshop is for people who are engineering images.
Lightroom is for photographers who take the picture correctly the first time.

I disagree.

Lightroom is getting better and better. It's exciting to see the enhancements BUT there are things we can do in Lightroom now that only a short while agree would only have been possible in Photoshop; in fact, Lightroom's full name is ... Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

We would always see and hear the “I like to get it right in camera” comments (well...don't we all?!?) but this made me think ... will we now start to see the 'I only edit in Lightroom' comments as being the modern day Put Down attempt ?

Images are edited.

They ALWAYS have been.

Even choosing a paper is (in my opinion) editing, because paper influences the look / feel of the final image.

Just a thought 🤔

Anyway, if you haven’t see my Color Space video, here it is …

Restoring a World War 1 Military Portrait using Photoshop

So yesterday I took some time out from recording a new video to work on restoring this Military Portrait for my Uncle Jeff.

Not something I usually do, in fact I think I've done one in the past, but it feels great to be able to be help like this as this is a portrait of a family member that my uncle is researching for his next book…

I guess this took about 3 hours to do, initially jumping in using the Photo Restoration Neural Filter in the current Photoshop Beta.

This certainly didn’t get the job done, but it did give me a good starting point…

As the original photograph was oval in shape, for my Uncle’s research / book I opted to make it a traditional portrait crop which meant adding in a completely new background which was reminiscent of the time it would have originally been taken. This also had to be done due to the small amount of background being visible and clean of damage.

I shared the result across social media yesterday evening and the response has been great, so I’ll look to add a video onto my YouTube Channel going over some of the key retouching points / techniques in the very near future.

BRILLIANT! LIVE Setting for PERFECT Photographs + INTELLIGENT Presets in Lightroom

The LIVE photo setting in the iPhone / mobile phones is INCREDIBLE!

Long Exposure Photography, being able to choose an exact moment before or after you took a photograph AND then there's Presets in Lightroom. Great advances in technology or cheating?

Whatever you think...it's VERY clever stuff!

EPIC FAIL: My First Photo Shoot of 2022

EPIC FAIL: My First Photo Shoot of 2022

All smiles now but could have been a very different story…

Got up early today for the 3.5 hour drive to Whiteford (Gower Peninsula, South Wales) to photograph the Victorian Lighthouse.

Having arrived at the nearest car park it was then just over a 3 mile walk across boggy wetland / marsh and forest to get to the beach…

How to develop your own unique and recognisable style

How to develop your own unique and recognisable style

I’ve recently updated my Developing your Style PDF where I go through what I truly believe is the way to develop your own unique and recognisable style.

As photographers, or indeed any form of art, I think it’s fair to say that we all want to have a style that is uniquely us, rather than a body of work that looks no different to the next person; but how?

Photography at Porlock Weir and meeting Mr & Mrs Grumpy

Photography at Porlock Weir and meeting Mr & Mrs Grumpy

I hadn’t actually intended to post this here on my website, but having shared the story on social media, and seeing the responses from people (some that were hilarious) I just had to add it here too for anyone that didn’t see the original on the likes of Facebook and Instagram.

Some of the comments posted on social media, I’ll add to the bottom.

Right, here goes…

Why I moved my website to SquareSpace

Why I moved my website to SquareSpace

If you’re reading this it means you’re on my new website so I hope you find it, a) easy to navigate b) responsive and c) that it looks good.

So, before I get into this I wanted to let you know that at the time of writing I’m not, in anyway, sponsored, affiliated or connected with SquareSpace. The reason/s I’ve made the move and feel compelled to let you know are purely personal because I figure if you’re really pleased with a product or service, then you should let others know.

With that said, here’s a little bit of history…

History

For a number of years, in fact pretty much ever since I started out, my main website had