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.

April 2017 events

Our month in photos

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!

Buley Rockhole

Litchfield Tourist Park Homestead

 Florence Falls

Wangi Falls

Resting fruit bats/flying foxes

Resting family

Four-family get-together

Continuing the reunion theme, we got together for our traditional family and friends’ dinner at the Nightcliff foreshore. 

Wedding Anniversary

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!

Easter Weekend

Pine Creek Digger’s Rest was our base for the Easter weekend.

Good Friday

Pine Creek Lookout, Watergardens  and Railway

Hooded parrot

Easter Saturday

Moline Rockhole, Kakadu Ranger Station, Bukbukluk Lookout, wildflowers, Miners Park

Easter Sunday

Umbrewarra Gorge, Copperfield Dam, kite, boot tree, sunset

Easter Monday

Home via Burrell Creek. Robin Falls, Adelaide River War Cemetery, Manton Dam wall

Rainbow bee-eater

In the garden

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

Sunset

Our magnificent sunsets always enhance family dinner on the foreshore.

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 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 19 Assignment – Leading Lines

Create a photograph with leading lines that guide the viewer’s eye.

The lines can either lead the viewer into the subject of the picture or across the picture to the subject.

Decide whether you want the subject of the picture to be the lines themselves or something else.

I tried to find leading lines in a variety of natural and constructed situations.

I experimented with Lightroom and Photoshop to enhance my photos by using the exposure, whiteness, contrast and highlights controls; I used a vignette for the first time and I removed a person’s head. I tried out the luminance bar/arch but I wasn’t confident and need a lot more practice as I pulled it into some unexpected shapes with undesirable results.

The originals follow the enhanced photos below.

Elizabeth River Bridge from the jetty

Elizabeth River Jetty with the bridge in the background

Train tracks converging with the road approaching the bridge

Finn Road in the rural area before the bridge – accidentally replaced the original

Rapid Creek

Footbridge over Rapid Creek – two views

A grove of gumtrees before the footbridge

Cloud over Nightcliff boat ramp breakwater and Sunset Park

Golden path to the sun Nightcliff

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.

Day 17 Assignment – Invite the Viewer In – Back to Front Composition

For this assignment we were to 

shoot a landscape scene arranging the shots using ‘back to front’ composition.

Concentrate  on the foreground.

Create a sense that the viewer can walk into the picture.

Try getting low, getting behind something. 

Look for patterns on the ground.