Before and After: Christmas Marching Band

On Sunday, November 25th, Mount Vernon (Ohio) had its Christmas Parade. By the way, Happy Holidays! So what does a Christmas Parade or any parade mean...STREET PHOTOGRAPHY! It is always nice to practice one's street photography or try it out at occasions like this.

Now let's move on to the editing! I started in Adobe Lightroom CC by changing the White Balance to As Shot. After cropping the photo, I changed the Highlights to -65 and Shadows to +65 and Clarity to +26. Next, I open the photo into Adobe Photoshop CC as an Smart Object to do any nondestructive editing. There I used ON1 Photo Raw 2019as a plugin. In Photo Raw, I started with a Tone Enhancer to add contrast and then a Split Tone to add some warmth to the photo. Then a Color Adjustment filter to increase the saturation. I added a Vignette next but used a mask to only apply it to the bottom of the photo so the top was brighter than the bottom. I wanted that bright sun look so I added a Sunshine filter followed by a bokeh-001 Texture. Finally finished it by adding a sloppy border with the Border filter.

Enjoy the holidays!

#beforeandafter #photoediting #streetphotography

Before editing in Adobe Lightroom CC and ON1 Photo Raw 2019.

After editing in Adobe Lightroom CC and ON1 Photo Raw 2019.

Before and After: Golden Plane

Giving an old biplane a golden effect using Adobe Photoshop. Starting in Adobe Lightroom, some basic adjustments were made in preparation before going over to Photoshop. First, to give the photo an faux HDR effect using the Basic panel in Lightroom, start by changing the Highlights slider to -81, the Shadows slider to +77, then the Whites slider to +27, and the Clarity slider to +28. Now we can head over to Photoshop by choosing Photo and Edit In. I prefer to choose Open as Smart Object in Photoshop to work nondestructively. 

In Photoshop, I started with adding a Color Lookup adjustment layer from the Adjustment panel and chose the 3Strip setting. Next comes a Gradient Map adjustment layer using the Sepia 3 gradient and sexting the blend mode to Hue. Then I made a copy of the Gradient Map layer and changed the blend mode to Hard Light. Next comes a Curves adjustment layer with the mid-point with the Input set to 166 and the Output set to 102, this darkens the midtowns of the photo. I then using a soft Radial Gradient on the Curves mask to knock out the adjustment in the center of the photo so as to give the look of a vignette. To finish it off, I added two black bars at the top and bottom to give it a wide look.

#beforeandafter #photoediting #adobephotoshop

Before editing in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.

After editing in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.

Before and After: Knockout in Lightroom

If one wants to knockout a background in a photo, you would go to a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. But a few years ago, I read about this trick in knocking g out the background using Adobe Lightroom. Using a photo of a World War II half-track vehicle from a local D-Day event, I thought I give it a try. 

After converting the photo to black and white, in the Basic panel, I adjusted the Blacks slider to +100 and the Whites slider to -100 plus pushed the Contrast slider up to +56 to create a contrast photo to start with. Also I pushed the Shadows slider up to +64. The plan is to try to blow out the whites in the background. To push up the details of the subject, I adjusted the Clarity slider to +45. In the Tone Curve panel, I changed the Lights to -35 to keep blowing out the whites, but increased the Darks slider to +33 and Shadows to -49 to keep the black from being too light or blown out. From this point on, it is using the Adjustment Brush with the Exposure push way up and painting out the background until nothing is there.

So now you do not need to go to a photo edited to knock out the background.

#beforeandafter #photoediting #adobelightroom

Before editing in Adobe Lightroom.

After editing in Adobe Lightroom.

Fall Colors 2018

While winter seems to be here already, I thought I share a shot I took last month while it was still Fall. Shot along the back roads of Knox County, Ohio, the colors were still kinda dull but with the help of the new ON1 Photo Raw 2019, the colors pop!

In Photo Raw, I started with a simple LUTs called ON1 Lutify-me which is a Vintage Chrome. I tend to like vintage. Then I added a Postcard texture with the Textures filter, followed with a Tilt-Shift Lens Blur filter. Then I threw another texture on top, a Photographic Brownie texture. To brighten it up some, I applied the Sunshine filter but changed the opacity to 67%.  Then came a Tone Enhancer filter to brighten it but only applied the filter to the center where the trees are to help bring them out from the background. A Color Enhancer  was then applied to the trees to make the color of the trees pop out. Then finished it off with a simple letter box border.

Before editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2019.

After editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2019.

Before and After: Flower in Black & White

A little black and white with some creativity. The shot was from this past summer and photographed at The Brown Family Environmental Center just west of Gambier, Ohio, location of Kenyon College. The editing was done in ON1 Photo Raw 2018. After cropping, I started with a Color Enhancer filter followed with a Tone Enhancer filter. Then came some Sharpening filter and I used a LUTs (Fixer) for the black and white conversion. Bumped up the contrast with the Dynamic Contrast filter and then added a crumbled paper texture with the Texture filter. Applied some Lens Blur and a Vignette with a little bit of Sunshine filter. Then I finished it off with a emulsion Border filter. I am pleased at how it came out.

Before editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2018.

After editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2018.

Before and After: Remind Me of Summer

An old but goody is this old shot from years ago which I shot with my first DSLR, a Canon T1i. Took the shot at The Brown Environmental Center outside Gambier, Ohio, location of Kenyon College. Every time I look at this picture, it makes me think of summer. The editing was done using only Adobe Lightroom (if I remember right).

The original photo I started with.

The final edited photo.

Before and After: Drama in the Clouds

Got some crazy clouds the other day! 

I took this shot with my Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon 24-70mm lens. The editing was done in ON1 Photo Raw 2018. Started with a Color Enhancer filter to booth saturation. Add some Lens Blur followed by a Big Softy Vignette. Then used a Tone Enhancer on the clouds and a Skylight Photo Filter before finishing it off with a simple white border.

Before editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2018.

After editing in ON1 Photo Raw 2018.

Luminar New AI Sky Enhancer

Skylum just released an update to Luminar 2018 with a new filter called AI Sky Enhancer. The filter detects a sky in the photo and with a simple slide of the slider, it can enhance the sky in the photo. I tried it on this shot I took at the Ariel-Foundation Park and I am impressed but this was only one photo. I would like to see how it does on other photos before I start dancing in the street. Check it out if you have Luminar 2018!

Ariel-Foundation Park photographed by Joe Frazee.

Before and After: Honey Run Falls (10.02.18)

It definitely not Niagara Falls but it is a waterfall. Honey Run Falls, located in Knox County, Ohio, is a nice peaceful small place to enjoy nature. With this shot of the falls, I used Skylum Luminar for editing and using Adobe Photoshop CC for removing some kids at the top of the falls.

Before editing in Skylum Luminar and Adobe Photoshop CC.

After editing in Skylum Luminar and Adobe Photoshop CC.

Douglas DC-3 in Black and White

When it comes to black and white editing, these days I been using ON1 Photo Raw 2018. But my go to black and white software in the past was Nik Collection's Silver Efex Pro and then I moved onto Macphun (now Skylum) Tonality. While I started late last year using Skylum's Luminar, I find that ON1 Photo Raw offers more in the creative area with textures, borders, etc. in one application. I definitely recommend ON1 Photo Raw and I am looking forward to the upgrade coming this November 2018.

Douglas DC-3 from Ohio University. This aircraft was delivered to the US Army in 1943 as a C-47 and later converted for commercial use. The C-47 was vital to Allied operations and was used to deliver supplies and personnel. Most notably, the C-47s filled the sky on D-Day dropping paratroopers into Normandy under the cover of darkness. Photographed during The 2nd Annual Knox County D-Day Event held at the Knox County Airport near Mount Vernon, Ohio on June 6, 2015. Photo by Joe Frazee