Category: Workflow

Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 2

Tag a long on a scouting expedition of the California Central Coast.

I’m continuing a three-day photography scouting trip along California’s Central Coast.  I’m preparing to lead a group here in November for the 2018 Central Coast and Napa Valley workshop.  In the previous post (Photographing the California Central Coast – Day 1), I was joined by a friend and we covered the north end of the Sonoma Coast.

Today is the second day and I’m on my own.  I enjoyed the company yesterday but today will be a more typical experience.

I started out by sleeping in.  It was almost 8:00 when I finally rolled out of my sleeping bag and emerged from my tent to a blue sky.   After yesterday’s overcast and foggy start, this was good news.   A quick breakfast and a hot shower and I was ready to go.  This day was going to cover more mileage than the day before but with fewer stops.

Gleason Beach was the first.

Gleason Beach

There were some sea stacks at this stop but they didn’t stand out.  The severe gash in the cliff that led down to the cluster of sea stacks just off shore, however, was far more interesting. I timed the shot to get two concentric rings of surf which added the grace of curved lines to an overall rugged composition.

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Sleeklens Lightroom Workflow Review

Use Lightroom presets and brushes from Sleeklens to enhance your creativity and improve your images.

Sleeklens is a company with a concept that is not new in the Adobe Lightroom world – providing presets to help us in processing our photographs. I’ve always shied away from using presets, just like I rarely if ever use the Auto tone adjustment built into Lightroom. I’ve always felt that I prefer making all the decisions myself rather than letting the computer make them in the case of Lightroom Auto tone or a designer make them in the case of presets.

But I recently received an evaluation copy of one of the Sleeklens presets workflows and have been using them on several photographs I’m working on. Sleeklens has a variety of presets for different purposes. The collection I received is titled ‘Through the Woods Workflow.’

Content

Through the Woods Workflow consists of forty-seven presets and twenty-nine brushes.

Presets

The Presets are global adjustments, affecting the entire image. Once installed they are in their own folder in the Presets area of the Development module screen. The presets are applied just like any other preset – namely, clicking on them.

The presets are organized into seven groups – All in One, Base, Exposure, Color Correction, Tone/Tint, Polish and Vignette. The All in One presets can affect the Basic, Tone Curve, HSL and Split Toning adjustment groups. Base mostly affects the Basic adjustments and occasionally the Tone Curve. One Base preset affects HSL and Split Toning. Exposure sets either Basic or Tone Curve. Color Correction adjustments are applied to HSL. Tone/Tint plays with Vibrance and Split Toning. Polish mostly adjusts Basic. And Vignette sets Post-Crop Vignetting in Effects. One thing that is missing is settings that utilize the new Dehaze adjustment in Effects.

Brushes

The brushes are used with the Adjustment Brush, Graduated Filter or Radial Filter. There are five groups – Basics, Color, Effects, Haze and Light. The brushes are applied by selecting the effect and painting with the Adjustment Brush or creating the Graduated or Radial Filter. Continue reading “Sleeklens Lightroom Workflow Review”

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Lightroom Tutorial – Workflow

An overview of a very effective Lightroom workflow.

There are about as many definitions of “fine art photography” as there are people who call themselves “fine art photographers.”  For many of us, fine art photography is an expression of our view of the world.  Much of what we see in the world is captured in the images we capture in the field.  But that’s not the whole story.  Why?  Because the true expressive quality of our photographs comes to life in the post processing – the digital darkroom if you will.

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