BRASHLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Back in 2016 at Whitsun hubby took a long weekend. Monday was a Bank Holiday, so he decided to take the Friday off as well. On that Friday it was warm and beautiful weather, so we headed to Birling Gap in East Sussex. The home of the Seven Sisters.

After taking a lot of photographs of the cliffs, I decided to take an image standing by the roadside of the rape field and winding road back to home. Now that was proving more difficult than I had first hoped. I stood patiently for quite a while waiting for a clear road. As you can imagine it was a busy road, with cars heading in both directions. But I was determined.

Next thing, I knew there was no traffic except for a blue car… and there was nothing approaching in either direction. My wait had finally paid off. I waited for the blue car to pass down the road and what did that driver do? Yes, he pulled into the side of the road. Right in my shot.

I was standing on uneven ground at the best and trying to hold a walking stick and camera with a backpack on, when I felt myself slide… so I snapped the shot quickly.

Oh, damn this, I thought and gave up and headed back to the car. This image has sat in Lightroom never seeing the light of day… until today.

Adobe released a huge update to their Lightroom Classic and one of the features was Object Removal.

The image was crooked, it had too many signs on it. I know I could have taken this to Photoshop to process, but I’m lazy like that… I only go into Photoshop if I really have to.

But with this new feature in Lightroom, I thought let’s try it! I couldn’t believe how well the Object Removal tool worked. It removed all the distractions with ease. So, I straightened the image, sent it to ON1 Photo RAW 2023 for a sky replacement and then back into Lightroom for a couple of presets to be used, that creates light. And a lot of dodging and burn using the brush tool.

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The new features that Adobe have added to this version of Lightroom are truly amazing. Apart from the Object Removal Tool, I also use the Background selection when creating a mask. The background selection in creating masks, is the tool I use most of the time when processing flower images. It can create softness, desaturation as well as adding colour of changing the usual things, like, Tint, Temperature, Exposure etc.

Yes, there are times when I think about cancelling my Adobe Subscription, but at just £9.98 a month, I get the benefits of Lightroom Mobile, Lightroom Classic, Bridge (I don’t use), Photoshop, Fresco and much more. Most software programs are moving towards a subscription plan now. So, I’ll just stick where I am for the moment. Lightroom has served me well and to be honest and there are features in Lightroom I couldn’t do without. For instance:

• The Publish Services – where you can publish photos Flickr, PicFair, Smugmug, Adobe Stock, Viewbug and a few more than I don’t subscribe to.
• Exporting straight to WordPress, so I don’t have to publish to my hard-drive and then upload to WordPress. It saves me storage on my computer.
• The ability with a few plugins to enable exporting images to Twitter, YouPic. – Again saving your storage
• The ability of using and creating Print Templates.
• The ability to create a Book in pdf format as well as uploading your book to Blurb.
• Creating Slideshows.
• Ability to create 5 Portfolios

Some of these features I don’t use regularly but I have used the Book and Slideshow in the past. However, I do use the Print section regularly.

I learnt my processing skills on Lightroom and as they say it’s better the devil you know. And as I use ON1 Photo RAW 2023 a lot, it seamlessly integrates with Lightroom and Photoshop quite well.

Have a great week! Until next time!