I am back posting at the moment simply because my hip has got worse and walking is now a thing that is getting painful to do. I’m off to see the surgeon on Monday Evening so hopefully I’m not too long before I have another new hip. I’ve already had the right hip replaced back in 2017 and it is marvellous.. I just can’t wait to get the left one operated on.
Mind you things don’t look to hopeful for non-urgent operations here in the UK with Covid being rampant again. But I live in hope that it will get done sooner rather than later.
So now I going through the archives finding a few images to play around with.
Just waiting for a good couple of days to get back in the bedroom and do my still life again. As you can image it is rather painful going up and down stairs and I limit myself to the bare minimum of stair climbing activities I can do in a day; at this precise moment.
So today I’ve been playing with a still life image I took awhile ago.

Camera Settings
Camera: Canon EOS 70D
Lens: EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-6.6 IS STIM
F/Number: f/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal Distance: 35mm
Shutter Speed: 1.0 sec
Software: Adobe Lightroom Classic
In Lightroom
- Added a Preset I got from ViewBug when I upgraded my account.
- Added some radial filters to add light.
- Cropped the image
- Decreased the Saturation to -31
- Added some more radial filters to increase light.
- Copied the settings.

Camera Settings
Camera: Canon EOS 70D
Lens: EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-6.6 IS STIM
F/Number: f/4.5
ISO: 100
Focal Distance: 35mm
Shutter Speed: 2.0 sec
Software: Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic
In Lightroom
- Pasted settings from previous image – Oranges in a Box and Vase (above)
- Cropped Image
- Added a gradient filter to highlight the oranges more
- Local adjustment to adjust the hue of the oranges and rose.
- Exported to Photoshop
In Photoshop
- Added a texture using the Soft Light Blend Mode.
- Removed the texture from some of the oranges and vase by using a layer mask
- Added a Hue Saturation Adjustment Layer and clipped it to the texture layer… where I increased the Hue to +19 and lowered the Saturation to -34. Again using a layer mask I removed a little more of this adjustment with a brush set at a very low flow and opacity number.
- Saved back into Lightroom
Back in Lightroom
- Added another Preset from Viewbug called 2VBlack Nature
- Added a couple of radial filters and adjusted the exposure to increase Light
- Cropped the image.
On another note I thought it might be helpful to my readers if I added the camera settings I used to achieve the still life image.
Your comments are greatly appreciated