I feel like I'm going through a phase, a sepia-toned phase. Every image that I have been taking/processing in the past week I have been putting through a bit of sepia toning (if that is even the correct term). I'll be the first to admit that I'm still a learning beginner with the post processing. but I'm trying (I refused to even think of doing this 2 years ago). Participating in a few photo challenges this year has me thinking more about the photos before I take them & slowed my usual amount of spitting out images in hopes of getitng 1 good/usable one. I feel I am getting better control over the images coming into the camera.
The above were taken on Galveston Island with the purpose of practicing some post processing. I had taken similar pictures in the past, but saw a few things I wanted to do differently (angle, amount of main subject in frame, & where did that bush come from?). For these images I used my 50mm f1.4 lens, adjusted the RAW file to create +2 & -2 exposure JPEG images to fuse with the out of the camera pic. In the fusing software, I chose black & white (a previous phase that I will definitely return to), with a saturation of 30% or 50% (wanted just a hint of color back in). Back to photoshop for a tad bit of straightening & the sepia filter tone at 50% or 80% (just a touch of to add texture to the fence), then maybe a tiny crop to balance it all out. I have to laugh at myself - this process would take forever at first, but now I can go through these steps rather quickly which makes going through several images a lot less time consuming (thank goodness - my computer time was taking over my day).
My last thought on these -- at least they aren't horse pictures!!! But don't worry more horses are in my future... show season starting back up. Do you also get stuck in a phase when learning a new processing trick? Do you find it helps your overall photography or hinders you in that you only see how you can process a photo rather than appreciate the skill used to capture the original image? Personally I'm hoping for a happy medium at some point.
For comparison - here are the original, straight out of the camera, no processing (other than to lower the resolution for web upload) images.
Hello Sherry,
ReplyDeleteI much prefer the sooc versions. Sorry. But that doesn't mean that I dislike the others and the sepia plus a bit of green is interesting, as an exercise. Playing is good and not everything works every time. Is your 'sepia period' going to be replaced by another one?
Thank you for the comment & I do appreciate the honesty (my sister doesn't care for any post-processing either). Just figuring out/testing effects - see how they turn out. I'm sure I'll move into some other phase/period, but not sure what yet (I'm open for suggestions). I've been curious about the plug-ins, but haven't been feeling the love for all the textures (yet). Thanks again for taking the time to check out my blog & comment.
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