



My assignment on removing colour cast didn’t get much of a reaction, so I’m just going to go ahead and post the next one.
I’m hoping the lack of activity indicates that everyone is busy getting on with life as much as possible under the circumstances and keeping well. Having this course to concentrate on has definitely helped keep me sane despite the restrictions. I am grateful for it.
For this assignment we were to select our favourite photo from this course and convert it to black and white. I chose two, Elizabeth River Bridge and Finn Road, both of which I used in the leading lines assignment.
When I Googled Nik Silver Efex Pro it said Google had made it available free of charge for a couple of years but they don’t anymore so I wasn’t able to use it. I experimented with Photoshop Express and Lightroom. I found the tools in Lightroom easier to use.
Below are the edited originals of each followed by the Photoshop and Lightroom versions.
Elizabeth River Bridge f5.6 1/1251s ISO 100 4.10 mm
Finn Road f5.6 1/1061s IO 80 21.66 mm
April was a busy month for us, starting with a family reunion weekend at Litchfield National Park to celebrate Brian’s 70th birthday.
Before we left we went to Nightcliff Dragons Under 9’s first Rugby League game of the season.
The next JT?
Go Cuz!
Resting fruit bats/flying foxes
Resting family
Continuing the reunion theme, we got together for our traditional family and friends’ dinner at the Nightcliff foreshore.
Our 34th wedding anniversary on 9 April saw us having lunch at Chow on the Darwin Waterfront. Delicious South-East Asian food and my first taste of green pawpaw salad – yum!
Pine Creek Digger’s Rest was our base for the Easter weekend.
Pine Creek Lookout, Watergardens and Railway
Hooded parrot
Moline Rockhole, Kakadu Ranger Station, Bukbukluk Lookout, wildflowers, Miners Park
Umbrewarra Gorge, Copperfield Dam, kite, boot tree, sunset
Home via Burrell Creek. Robin Falls, Adelaide River War Cemetery, Manton Dam wall
Rainbow bee-eater
Cavendish and Dwarf Ducasse bananas
Cavendish and Lady Finger bananas
Tomato seedlings
Basil from Penni
Kathy’s orchid – primrose scented
Six sprays on one orchid
Our magnificent sunsets always enhance family dinner on the foreshore.
Billabong 1
Billabong 2
Two Jabiru, one Egret
Single Jabiru
For this assignment we were to enhance the colour of the sunset photo we took for our assignment on Day 3.
This photo was so dark that increasing the vibrance did little to improve it:
So, I made adjustments in Lightroom to contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks, then increased the vibrance:
I took it into Photoshop and cropped it to get rid of the footpath, then used the spot heal and clone stamp tools to remove the signpost.
Jim Hamel commented that he wasn’t sure that my clinging tree example had anything to do with dynamic range but that it did improve the photo, so I submitted another and asked if it was a better example.
Original 1/1000 f7.1 ISO200
I call this the Clinging Tree because it has been clinging to the edge of the cliff by its roots for years and has even survived cyclones. This photo was taken with the sun setting to the left.
1/80 f/8 ISO 3200 54mm
For this assignment we were to add texture and punch to one of our pictures by adding contrast.
Nightcliff Jetty – Original 1/1000 f3.5 ISO 80 24mm
I didn’t like the white patch in the sky when I removed the lamp posts, but I didn’t like the result when I tried to fix it either so I started again:
End results with and without lamp posts.
For this assignment we were to make changes to discrete portions of a photo using tools in Lightroom and Photoshop.
This is the original f3.5 1/2000 410 mm ISO 1600
Befor crop
End result
Re-posting after Jim suggested applying a light vignette instead of cropping.
Re-posting with vignette feathered out so it’s barely noticeable.
For this assignment we were to find one of our photos where the lighting or exposure was off and fix it using the tools in Lightroom and Photoshop we’d learnt about in Day 23: Control the Light.
I selected this photo from Day 6 Assignment – Stop the Action because Jim Hamel liked it but said it needed brightening in post processing.
This first photo is the original.