Photo of the Day
In 2008 we visited New York as our first big baseball trip. We got into town late at night just after a big rain. As a photographer I could not ask for more. I was not really shooting landscapes at the time though as I mostly just shot sports. In situations like this I would just put my camera in auto mode. It would get me results some of the time, but it would often leave me with a result that I didn’t like. This picture is an example of one of those times. Most of this shot was just dark out of the camera. Only through the magic of photo editing software was I able to bring it back to something that I could like. It was a grand scene, and I am glad that I was able to preserve this memory of my first time there.
Technical Data
Yesterday I participate in a Webinar for Topaz Labs. They focused on the Black and White 2 program that they have, but it got me interested in other webinars that they have done. I watched one on Night Photography on YouTube to get some ideas. It really did give me some insight into their products that I have not had. Most of my experience has been that it takes longer to use them than I can make the same effect in Lightroom. This entire shot was edited using Topaz products, and I really like the result. First off I oped up Lightroom to send the photo over to my Topaz center which is photoFXlab. I used that to open up Topaz Adjust 5. I saw Nichole Paschal who ran the webinar use Spicify on a night image to great success. I used the same filter here, and I liked what it did. The only problem though was that to get the scene lit correctly meant that I had a lot of noise. I then hit okay to go back to the lab so that I could open up Topaz DeNoise 5. This is a great product which I have used a little recently. I used the strong jpeg filter to get the noise under control. From there I was able to send the photo back to Lightroom so that I could export it. The only trouble that I see here is that when I edit a copy of a picture from Lightroom I lose all of my Metadata. I will have to fix that because I really like what the two programs can do together.
Dave Wegiel Photography 