From Clicking to Creating
From Clicking to Creating – Week 1 2017
All right, let’s get this year of challenges started.
Week 1 for the Dogwood challenge was harder for me than I thought it would be. The challenge is Look Ahead, with the category being Vision.
Vision: This category is designed to push you to go beyond sight, to insight; to take inspiration and make it a reality. Vision exists in your imagination and is revealed your photographs; expressing something otherwise invisible. Developing a Vision for your work is showing to others what you see in your mind’s eye.
I finally decided to shoot this road that is usually pretty empty of cars. I went out at sunrise because I wanted a softer light in the image. Because there was no traffic I was able to stand in the middle of the road and frame the shot to accentuate the road ahead. The meaning for me is looking ahead at an open road that goes new places, or holds new adventures.
I also shot it in landscape mode, but I like this view better. This is the original image.
Because the sun was not quite up yet, I had to do some work in lightroom to brighten it up. These are the overall adjustments I made to the image. Changing the white balance on a photo like this is probably the most important thing to start with.
I also used the adjustment brush to bring out the sky some more. This shows the brush in red so you can see what I did.
The 2LilOwls prompt this week is outside. Since I love the outside, this was pretty easy for me. And as always, Torrey is my great model.
This is the original, crooked image. We climbed this little hill late in the day so I could get Torrey and I watching the sunset. I ended up liking these images with the sun flares, and good lighting.
This image didn’t need much lightroom help.
I want to share a couple of quick lightroom tips for those that have it. There are so many adjustments on the right hand side, and sometimes stuff gets missed. One basic, and helpful thing to always do is check the box to enable profile corrections. This will fix any lens distortion if shooting wide angle, and tells lightroom what camera and lens you are using. This is only available if you are shooting RAW however, which I 100% recommend for many reasons.
I read about this trick a couple years ago, and I wish I had known it sooner. Towards the bottom on the right hand side is this adjustment.
Where it says Profile there are several options, the default is Adobe Standard. My camera is set to shoot camera standard, so if this is set to Adobe standard the colors are not quite right. Make sure that what your camera is set to shoot, this matches. Another trick that helps with some images, is the blue saturation slider. Sometimes…not always, increasing this will brighten an image, and bring out the colors. It’s worth playing with to see what it can do for you.
Next week the Dogwood challenge is Color Harmony. This website by Adobe is a great tool to learn about complimentary colors. On the left hand side of the screen are several options to play around with, that can help you with next weeks challenge.
Ok, lets see what you guys created this week.
Just an FYI, I have fixed the comments so you can place a link in the comment field. That way you can share a photo from an online photo sharing site, or connect to a blog post if you like. I also created a hashtag on Instagram #fromclickingtocreating. So that’s another great way to share our photos.
WOW, Mary….there is so much here that is really inspiring me. First of all, about a year ago, I wrote a quote and put it on my Instagram:”I wish I could show you what my soul sees.” That quote was written when I felt frustrated that I could not show in my photography what I ENVISION not with my eyes, but with my imagination. But I’ve been learning to look beyond, and trust my own instincts. I wrote another quote: “I see what isn’t there.” I see more and better with my imagination than I do with my eyes but both have to work in tandem in order to find and photograph the right moment, sometimes a very simple object or angle.
Secondly, I’ve been using Lightroom now for about 2 months and the best results have been coming by playing around with it. However, your tips here, especially about the blue slider, I am going to use immediately.
I’ve come to learn more and more that art of any kind takes time, diligence and sometimes frustrations in order to produce anything, good or mediocre. I’ve got to be patient with myself and keep going.
Wonderful tips. Thanks.
I think you described this weeks prompt of vision perfectly. It can be hard to get an idea out of your head, and into a photo. But, patience, trial and error, and keeping at it will help you meet your goals. Giving up, or taking the easy way out is not an option in creativity.
Lightroom is very much about playing around with it and getting the look you want with your images.
Thank you Mary. I’m sitting here, on my second and last week on vacation. I want to play, photograph, edit, etc. First of all, I’m sick and I feel crappy! Then, it’s freezing outside so going out to experiment is NOT an option, then our car insurance won’t kick in until midnight, so I’m home, stuck. I know there has to be a way to find magic in my house today, because you’re right; giving up is NOT an option in creativity because a huge percentage of what we create is trial and error. We’ll never find those golden nuggets if we don’t pick away at the stubborn, hard top soil of our challenges! Thank you once again! OH, one more question: I have Lightroom now, but no longer have PS. Will that limit me?
Yuck…cold and you’re sick too?! Not fun. I have seen some of the beautiful images you have created inside your home, I’m sure you will find something. You need to check out the 2lilowls website. Denise only shoots in her house and has youtube videos on her set up. You will be just fine with only using lightroom. Most of my editing is done in lightroom. Also, I just created a hashtag on instagram #fromclickingtocreating You can use that to share photos too.
Hi Mary! Thank you so much for being here today for me. Yeah, I ate something on New Year’s Eve that did not agree with me and I’m still paying the price. Hard to get up and about even in the house! I will check out the website and your hashtag. Oh, the choices! And good to know I can get along without PS; I lost it after we upgraded my operating system on my computer, but learning Lightroom has been great!
We need a personal tutor. Mom tried shooting in raw but couldn’t figure out how to edit in photoshop. We have not tried lightroom, but hear it is really a great program. Don’t know if we could figure it all out on out own. Editing is a huge part of photography, so we need to get to raw and lightroom at some point I think. Love that road shot. So simple, but it says so much.
I have the Adobe creative cloud monthly subscription. About $10, and worth every cent. So I have lightroom, and photoshop both. Every image goes into lightroom were I can do my editing, and organizing. If I want to use photoshop, I can import straight from one program to the other, and back into lightroom with any adjustments I did. Photoshop recognizes the RAW file and opens it with the RAW editor. That being said, there has to be a RAW editor in your version of photoshop. Maybe look under edit>preferences and find the file handling tab. There should be something in there.
Hello, love the shot of the road ahead and your cute Torrey. Thanks for sharing the tips and your creativity. Awesome photos, well done.
Have a happy day and new week ahead!
This is a cool weekly photo challenge, Mary. I look forward to learning more from you. So this week we’ll be working on vision using Lr to edit (?)
You can choose to use whatever editing program you normally use, I am just showing what I do in lightroom in hopes that it helps someone. Yes, the category is vision with the prompt being Look Ahead. I am looking forward to seeing what you create!
Hi Mary, Here is my entry. Hope I’m on the right track. :)
https://shareandconnect.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/from-clicking-to-creating-posted-week-i-look-ahead/
I love looking at your pictures Mary, thanks for sharing those and the amazing tips as well. I’d also argue that the photo of Torrey, with your feet in the photo also shows vision. :-) You ARE looking ahead.
There is so much great information here. There is so much to photography, it sometimes just overwhelms me! One question – how did you correct the crookedness of the photo with Torrey? I’m sure it was something simple, but I wouldn’t know how to even do that. Thanks!
I straightened the photo in lightroom with the crop tool. You can grab a corner and turn the image until it’s straight.
Thanks for the tips and your wonderful photos! I messed around with lightroom a little thanks to your prompting, but see there’s much to absorb! These nugget sized morsels are going to be a wonderful way to nudge me along this year. Thank you! I am following along with the challenge prompts from 2LilOwls. I had several ideas, but in the end decided to try injecting a little humor into my photo. I’m still getting used to my photo equipment and find I surprise myself each time I take my camera out that I learn something else. Yay! This is probably the best my garden will look this year, ha! https://www.flickr.com/photos/lm_viking/shares/D72aP6
I love that!! What a fun interpretation on the prompt. (Hmmmmm, even I could do a garden like that)
I love love love the open road image. And thank you for the Lightroom tips – I am just about to try some of them!!! I barely know that program although I use it at least daily. I haven’t yet come up with a good enough idea for the first dogwood challenge, which is the one that I thought that I’d try. I’ll think of something!
The image of your feet and Torrey is beautiful!
Oh my goodness – I’ve been using the wrong color profile for years! Thank you for educating me so that I could figure that out!!!!
Sorry for a third comment but now I understand why my LR images never looked like the previews on the LCD screen of my camera. Thank you!
When I learned about the color profile setting, I had the exact same reaction as you. It really does make a huge difference. You can create an import preset so that the color profile is the same every time you import images.
Set the color profile on any image, I’m assuming you use camera standard too. Don’t do any other adjustments. Now go to the left side were your presets are. Click the + sign at the top of the presets tab. A box will pop up to create a new preset. Name it Import preset. All the boxes will be checked, and that’s Ok. The color correction is the important one. Create the preset. Now go to import. On the right hand side in import mode there is “Apply during import” where it says develop settings click the menu thing and find Import preset. Click that. Import will now always use this preset upon importing photos unless you change it.
I hope this helps. I’m going to incorporate this into this weeks post I think. There are a lot of things you can apply at import, and this is one of them.
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