Day 30 Assignment – Eliminate Digital Noise

For this assignment I selected the three photos of a martial arts demonstration by the Darwin Chung Wah Society I used for Day 22 Assignment – Capture the Decisive Moment. Jim remarked that they were a little noisy due to the wide aperture and high ISO necessary for the high shutter speed needed to stop the action.

I used the Noise Reduction slider in Lightroom and tweaked the results a bit to try to maintain as much detail as possible. The second photo of each pair is the noise-reduced version.

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Day 29 – Work in Black and White

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

Day 28 Assignment — Remove Colour Cast

For this assignment we were to check our landmark photos from Days 21 and 22 for colour casts and remove them using the tools in Lightroom or ACR.

As I have been unable to complete those assignments due to Covid 19 restrictions, I practised on some recent photos taken at Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve near Darwin.

I experimented with Auto and eye-dropper tools in Lightroom with some interesting results. Overall, Auto on its own was too extreme and needed tweaking and the eye-dropper results depended on the neutral area selected.

Here I am showing the original, one of my attempts and the end result for four photos.

Billabong 1

Billabong 2

Two Jabiru, one Egret

Single Jabiru

Day 27 Assignment – Enhance your Colour

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.

Day 26 Assignment – Fix Dynamic Range 2

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

Day 25 Assignment – Add Contrast

For this assignment we were to add texture and punch to one of our pictures by adding contrast.

I wasn’t happy with my first attempt where I started in Photoshop then made adjustments in Lightroom, so I started again from scratch using Lightroom first then only used Photoshop to clean up the jetty and remove the lamp posts.

Nightcliff Jetty – Original 1/1000 f3.5 ISO 80 24mm

First attempt – lamp posts left in

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.

Day 24 Assignment – Use the Power of Local Adjustment

For this assignment we were to make changes to discrete portions of a photo using tools in Lightroom and Photoshop.

I spent a lot of time trying to change the colour of the sky but was unhappy with the results and ended up cropping out most of the sky and using the clone stamp tool to extend the tree line instead.

I removed a lamp post, a few magpie geese in the background and leaf litter in the grass and on the dirt using the healing brush. I played around with the contrast, saturation, highlights sharpness and whites and lightened the horse’s tail to match the mane and make it look cleaner.

My undo/redo functions got a good workout with this. Whenever I looked at the finished product I found something else I wanted to change!

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.

Day 23 Assignment – Enhance Tones

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.

The second photo shows the results of my first attempt at brightening using the basic sliders in Lightroom and slight cropping on the left side to remove a partial palm frond.

I hadn’t made notes of the adjustments I’d made so I went back and the third photo shows the results after I

increased the contrast and highlights

brought down the shadows

increased the whites

brought down the blacks

and I removed the log fence in Photoshop.

Then in photo 4, I went a bit further and 

increased the temperature, tint and vibrance 

lowered the saturation  

increased the clarity 

lowered the dehaze.

Day 22 Assignment – Capture the Decisive Moment

This assignment is a continuation of Day 21 Work the Scene, but as I am unable to complete that at the moment, I am submitting some photos I took of a martial arts demonstration by the Darwin Chung Wah Society for Chinese New Year last month.

I think they meet the anticipation requirement of the assignment.

Please bear in mind this was my first time using manual mode in an indoor stadium setting, just the second week of the course. The photos are unedited except for a bit of cropping.

1/400 f5.6 ISO 3200

1/400 f5.6 ISO 3200

1/400 f5.0 ISO 3200

Day 18 Assignment – Clouds

For this assignment we were to create one compelling photo of clouds.

Set the horizon on the bottom third line so that at least two thirds of the frame is sky.

Foreground is important so chose your location carefully.

Make sure the picture balances – use formal or informal balance – symmetrical or asymmetrical.

Spend time getting it just right by cropping.

This is almost identical to the original which I seem to have deleted.

Cropped and removed blemishes in Photoshop.

I love the balance of the little fishing boat on one side against the dark menacing storm cloud on the other.

This cloud balanced itself but I took a few other shots to include some foreground.

It was hard to find an example of formal symmetrical balance. I used the jetty lightposts.