Before and After: Head Down

Here is a before and after from a shot I took last year during the Pelotonia event held in central Ohio. All post processing was done using only Adobe Lightroom CC. Since then, I have switch to ON1 Photo Raw for processing my photos.

#beforeandafter #photoediting #adobelightroom #pelotonia

After editing in Adobe Lightroom CC.

Before editing in Adobe Lightroom CC.

Migrating from Lightroom to ON1 Photo Raw

I finally did it! I migrated my Adobe Lightroom CC catalog to ON1 Photo Raw 2019 over the weekend. I have always been a user of Lightroom since the beginning, but I have been feeling like I needed more. This is where ON1 Photo raw 2019 comes in. Yes, I can "develop" my photos like Lightroom inside Photo Raw, but I can also go further with Photo Raw. Photo Raw offers Layers and Effects and a Portrait section, things that Lightroom does not offer. I can stay in Photo Raw and add textures and more without having to switch to another application or plugin. These days you need to add a little POP to your photos in this Instagram world where people apply some effect to their photo to make it stand out.

ON1 Photo Raw 2019

But Photo Raw is missing a few things that Lightroom has. One is that in Lightroom, I can upload photos directly to my SmugMug site or upload to Facebook. This of course does require some thinking and additional steps. Photo Raw does lack uploading to web except for Dropbox or GoogleDrive. Also missing, it the ability to import your photos as DNG files, something I been doing for many years. Photo Raw does recognize your DNG files but you can not create DNG files inside Photo Raw. Also, I use Lightroom Mobile to share photos to for example Instagram. ON1 Photo Raw I believe has a mobile app which I have not check out yet, but it requires you to have a storage site like GoogleDrive for which to upload to.

So, how did the migration go? It went pretty smooth but took hours, 8 hours is about right. But I do suggest before using the Migration Tool in Lightroom, prepare your Lightroom catalog first. ON1 has a list of things they suggest you do before proceeding with the migration. Validate DNG files, make sure catalog photos are synced, and so on. I spent roughly two hours preparing my Lightroom catalog for the migration. But, I did have issues the next day. Photo Raw kept crashing but after open a ticket with ON1 support, they emailed me a fix the next day. So far, the crashes seem to have gone away and Photo Raw is now usable. HURRAY!

Bottom line, if you are like me wanting to go beyond Lightroom or are tired of paying a monthly fee, ON1 Photo Raw 2019 might be for you. But while Photo Raw might be a replacement for Lightroom, it is not a replacement for Adobe Photoshop...yet. I do find myself using Photoshop for a few things. If you do not like Photoshop, Photo Raw will work with other photo editors like Affinity Photo. So, ON1 Photo Raw 2019 might be the application to make you take a leap from Lightroom, for me it is!

Starting the migration from Adobe Lightroom CC using the Migration Tool.

#on1photoraw #adobelightroom #migration

Pelotonia 2018

One of the events I attended in 2018 was Pelotonia 2018 here in central Ohio back in August. Pelotonia, a fund raising for cancer reach, is a three day biking event in central Ohio and the bike riders route is through Knox County (Ohio) and ends in Gambier, Ohio on the beautiful campus of Kenyon College.  The countryside in Knox County is great for a beautiful bike rider and has two bike trails, Kokosing Gap Trail and Heart of Ohio Trail. The bike riders from the Pelotonia event ride on the Kokosing Gap Trail section outside of Gambier. One of the perfect places I found to take pictures of the riders is on the old railroad bridge which crosses over the Kokosing River. It is a absolutely beautiful spot in which to use my Canon EF 70-300mm 1.4 lens with the Canon 5D Mark III. Btw, the event is a great time to practice photographing moving subjects, something I admit I just don't get to often. As for photo editing, I use Adobe Lightroom CC and a few times used ON1 Photo Raw. For now, Lightroom is my main go to software for going through hundreds of photos.

For those who wish to see more of the photos I shot during the event, you can check out the Pelotonia 2018 gallery on my SmugMug page. I hope you will enjoy the photos from the event!

#pelotonia #bikeriding #photoediting

Which One?! Looking at Adobe Lightroom alternatives

Photographers and photo editors now have more choices than ever. If you use Adobe Lightroom CC like I do, you now have alternatives to Lightroom. Last month (December 2018), I updated my ON1 Photo Raw (it is now 2019 version) which I love because it offers things that Lightroom and Luminar (from Skylum) do not have. It has all these effects, textures, borders and so on. It is kinda like Adobe Photoshop but it offers the organizing abilities of Lightroom, it is like Lightroom and Photoshop in one application. With Photo Raw, I feel I can be more creative than using Lightroom or Luminar.

Adobe Lightroom CC

But, there is Luminar 3 from Skylum which I just upgraded to. I have been using Luminar 2018 and I do like it, but again it does not have all the bells and whistles that ON1 Photo Raw has. The new Luminar 3 now includes Libraries, so like ON1 Photo Raw 2019 it wants to be my Lightroom replacement. As I said, I just upgraded rto Luminar 3 and it is too early for an opinion and like Photo Raw 2019, I need some time to play with it.

Photo Raw 2019 from ON1

I know that these software companies see a opportunity here to take away some of Adobe's customers, the Lightroom users. There are Adobe customers that are not happy with the whole subscriptions thing and would prefer to buy the software than to rent the software. But I wonder if there is too many choices for those who like to abandon Lightroom and be free of Adobe's world. Right now, I really do not know which one I would jump to if I decide to leave Lightroom, but for now I think I will stick to Lightroom and use Photo Raw and Luminar as plugins like I have always done. But, it has crossed my mind to walk away from Lightroom and Adobe, but I prefer not to make a quick decision on this.

So, what do you think about these new software? Do you plan to use one of them as a replacement to Lightroom?

Luminar 3 from Skylum

#opinion #photoediting #on1photoraw #skylumluminar

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.