Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2

Top 10 Lightroom Tweets of the Week

by Sherri on June 19, 2009

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Kayaking Lake Clementine, Auburn, California.

Back by popular demand is another round-up of favorite Lightroom tweets. Once again, I have way too many to include in this post. That means, I will be doing the same thing again next week.

Thank you to all of you who either commented on last week’s blog post, started following me on Twitter, retweeted me, or included me in a post. A HUGE thanks to @MattKloskowski for featuring me on worth-a-click on the Adobe Lightroom Killer Tips Website. [click to continue…]

Monday’s Makeover: A Pair-O-Gliders

by Sherri on June 15, 2009

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Photo #1 - Paragliding in the Sierra Foothills.

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Photo #2 - Paragliding in the Sierra Foothills.

Sometimes I have a hard time tossing out a photo just because it’s out of focus. This photo is one of those photos. What I like to do when this happens is to apply my favorite artistic filter in PhotoShop CS3 “Poster Edges.”

Photo # 1 – In Lightroom 2, I set the White Balance to daylight and applied the Nikon D300 preset. Then, in PhotoShop CS3, I turned this out of focus photo into a digital art photo, by applying the “Poster Edges” filter.

Photo #2 – This is the way the NEF looked straight out of the camera.

Does this work for you? I’d love to hear your comments.

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Top 10 Lightroom Tweets of the Week

by Sherri on June 12, 2009

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Gloriosa Daisy in my yard. In Lightroom, I changed the White Balance to daylight and used the Nikon D300 preset. I also touched up a few hot spots on the petals with the “Recovery Slider.”

As a fairly new and totally hooked Lightroom user, I am always looking for great Lightroom tips. Each week, I keep my eyes wide-open for information I feel is worthy of passing along to other Lightroom users, or those thinking about becoming one. Hopefully, you will find useful information or you will pick up a few new folks to follow.

Here are my “Top 10 Lightroom Tweets of the Week” in no particular order. Enjoy! [click to continue…]

Wednesday’s WOW: Sierra Paragliding Adventure

by Sherri on June 9, 2009

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Paraglider flying over the Cronan Ranch, Pilot Hill, California.

This week is the week for starting new things. On Monday, I started “Monday Makeover.” Today, I am starting something else new and exciting. I am going to post a photo that makes me say “WOW.” But, that’s not all. I’m going to tell you why I think it qualifies as a WOW photo.

5 reasons why this photo makes me say WOW!

Feeling or emotion – The first thing I get when I look at this photo is a feeling. While I can’t actually say I know what it feels like to take off like this guy is doing, I can feel it in the photo.

Composition – I love the composition. The elements in the photo are well balanced and are very pleasing to the eye.

Color – The color really pops in this photo. I did use the Nikon D300 preset for Lightroom, to add a little punch to the color.

Lighting – Even though this photo was taken in April at 1:40 in the afternoon, the lighting works for me. The way the wing is illuminated by the sun really catches my eye.

Timing – The fact that this was shot during take off makes it a really strong image too. These guys don’t always get enough lift to get off the ground.

Don’t go away just yet. I am also going to recommend that you look at this WOW photo by Kathleen Connally. If you would like to suggest a particular photo to be included in an upcoming Wednesday’s WOW post, please send me an email @sherri@sherrimeyer.com.

NOTE: The idea for “Makeover Monday” and “WOW Wednesay” were both inspired by junk email or snail mail I have saved. I knew they would come in handy for something someday!

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Virginia City, Nevada

by Sherri on May 9, 2009

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Downtown Virginia City, Nevada.

Jeff & I just had to make it to the ghost town Virginia City during our recent road trip. Neither of us had been there since we were kids. To top that off, my Mom and Dad ran away and got married there over 70 years ago, after knowing each other for just 3 short weeks!

It looked like I remember it, although there are more tourists and it has gotten pretty commercialized over the years. But, all in all, it’s still a fun place to visit!

About the photo

I used the Antique Grayscale Preset in Adobe PhotoShop Lightroom 2, to achieve the “old time” look.

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Visit our Stock Photo Website for links to photo galleries.

Quad Adventure in Truckee, California

by Sherri on May 4, 2009

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Jeff riding his Quad along the shore of Prosser Reservoir, Truckee, California.

This shot was taken during our recent road trip to the Truckee/Lake Tahoe area to capture travel, adventure and lifestyle photos for our stock files.

The first stop during our road trip was at Prosser Reservoir for a little Quad fun and photos. This photo is one of my favorites from our photo shoot.

Photo Details – In Camera

This pan photo was shot on a Nikon D300 with a Nikon 70-200 zoom lens attached, using the following camera settings: ISO 100, shutter speed 1/10 sec., aperture f 20.

Post processing in Lightroom

I set the Clarity to +100 and the Vibrance to +45.

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Wild Iris

by Sherri on April 29, 2009

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Wild Sierra Iris, Cronan Ranch Regional Trails Park, near Coloma, California.

These beautiful Wild Sierra Iris were growing along the trail at the Cronan Ranch Regional Trails Park, the day of our hike with friends. They are a common wildflower here in the Sierra Foothill’s and can be found along many hiking trails. One of the other places I have found them is at Hidden Falls Regional Park in Auburn.

The original image did nothing for me, but I didn’t want to dump it. It was taken at 1:00 in the afternoon under harsh lighting. It also lacked vibrance. I decided to work with it a bit in Lightroom 2 and this is what I came up with. I set the Clarity to -100 to give it a softer look and set the Vibrance to +70, which made the colors pop. wild-iris3
This is what this photo looked like straight out of the camera.

I have 2 questions for my viewers.

1. Which one do you like best?

2. Can you identify this species of Wild Iris?

Thank you for visiting. If you would like to leave a comment, simply click on the “comments” link (add your message in the box) at the bottom of this post.

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5 Simple & Fun Lightroom Tips

by Sherri on April 22, 2009

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Love Comes Softly movie set at the Cronan Ranch, Pilot Hill, California.

For all you Lightroom lovers out there, here are a few simple tips you can try to improve your photos, or to simply give them a new look.

Want to make your photos look like a painting? You can do this by simply adjusting the fill light. For this photo of the movie set, I adjusted the fill to 45.

Make your colors pop. Try using the Vibrance Slider instead of the Saturation Slider. It will brighten up only the areas that need to be brightened up, not everything in the photo. In this photo of the Narcissus I adjusted the Vibrance to +100.

Add “punch” to your photos using Clarity. Clarity adds midtone contrast to your photos, which makes them appear to have had the midtones sharpened. For this photo of the famous McArthur-Burney Falls in Northeastern California, I set the Clarity to +100.

Give your photos a soft, diffused look using Clarity. To achieve a soft look, try adjusting the Clarity in the negative direction. In my photo of the Mystery Rider, I adjusted the clarity to -100. This also works really well when shooting portraits.

Turn your color photo into an antique looking photo. You can do this easily by using the Antique Grayscale (similar to Sepia) Preset. Check out this photo of the Three Amigos.

There is really no right or wrong. Just experiment and have fun!

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McArthur-Burney Falls Favorite

by Sherri on April 6, 2009

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McArthur-Burney Falls, Northeastern, California.

This photo of the famous McArthur-Burney Falls was taken last summer, during our Northeastern California Road Trip.

I didn’t really like the way it looked straight out of the camera at all. It was actually one of the photos that almost got dumped during the editing process. Then, the other day, I started experimenting in Adobe PhotoShop Lightroom 2.1 to see what I could come up with.

Now, it is actually one of my favorites from the series of photos I took of the falls. You can see a few more photos of McArthur-Burney Falls in my Shasta County category.

Can you figure out what I did to make this photo look like a painting? I will post the answer in a few days. Thank you for your participation!

Thank you for visiting. If you would like to leave a comment, simply click on the “comments” link (add your message in the box) at the bottom of this post.

You can also sign up for a “free” subscription to this Blog. Just look in the upper right hand side of the Blog under “Subscribe to Sherri’s Blog.” Then, either click on the orange button, or enter your email address and click on “subscribe.”

Visit our Stock Photo Website for links to photo galleries.

Update: Thank all of you who commented on this photo of McArthur-Burney Falls. I am not going to make you wait any longer to tell you what I did to get it to look like a painting.

First of all, the original photo was way too underexposed. I really didn’t think I would be able to do anything with it, but I was wrong! I started experimenting using Lightroom 2.1, until I either got something I liked, or it was going into the trash bin.

Settings I used in Lightroom

Set Blacks to 0

Set Recovery to 100

Set Fill to 80

Set Clarity to +100

Set Vibrance to +55

Are you surprised?

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