Buddy Nights
are a great way of finding out more about your camera or a particular aspect of
photography from other club members. There was a lively buzz of conversation
around the room last Wednesday. Here are
just a couple of examples of what people were sharing:
How to be in different places at
the same time - Photoshop Layering
Joy S wanted to try something wacky. She had made three pictures of herself,
in ‘musical soirée’ mode, and she asked David P to help her layer them in Photoshop Elements.
By placing the images side by side and after a bit of juggling, David was able
to demonstrate how to ‘rub out’ bits of a layer to reveal Joy in the next pose
and so eventually this clever composite picture was created. Notice that they
kept to the ‘odd number of subjects’ rule!
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Musical soirée
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A powerful free post-production
tool – Snapseed
If you have an iOS or Android tablet and can either not afford the likes
of Lightroom or one day find yourself away from your normal computer, you might like to
download Snapseed. It’s software originally created by Nik and now owned and
regularly updated by Google. With it you can do some powerful editing of your photos. Philip S had brought along three deliberately poor
photos to demonstrate some of Snapseed’s capabilities. Here are some before and
after shots and a note of the functions applied in Snapseed:
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| Before |
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| After |
This was a RAW file. Snapseed was used to warm up the image, enhance the
pool of light, lighten some of the shadows, heal some areas, sharpen the image
and apply a modest vignette.
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| Before |
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| After |
Snapseed was used to spotlight the face in this image, darken the
highlights in the sky, lighten the foliage, straighten the horizon slightly and apply a
white border. Shame about the subject – but there we are!
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| Before |
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| After |
For this picture of Rome, Snapseed was used to lighten the shadows,
straighten up the verticals slightly, crop the top a little, and increase the
dynamic range (using the HDR function on this single image). HDR is like Marmite - people either love or hate the effect - and you might actually prefer the 'Before' image in this instance!
These were not award winning shots, but I think you might agree that
Snapseed did manage to improve the images. And the most impressive thing is
that it’s entirely free… and I don’t get paid commission!
A nice Blog Philip, thanks. Being preoccupied, I missed your demo so good to see examples of what Snapseed can do. Looks fun and will definitely give it a try.
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