For the fun of it

I wanted to post something here, for the fun of it! I noticed that I spent very little time in August 'blogging" and it is my husband that HIGHLY recommends I keep up a schedule with blogging. He suggest that if I do not post something "regularly" then I have a chance of people not wanting to check me out! I really do think that this blog is my next step to moving forward with my photography, so no neglecting! And because I like to "teach" something, I am posting something with a new technique I have learned!

The photo above, I used LightRoom3 for the post processing. A gift from my husband, I had been using LR2 for a while now and realize how much I LOVE LR3 vs 2! Its a big difference! Any way, the one new feature that I really do like, which is available in LR2 and LR3, is the graduate filter! All of you have seen, if you visit my flickr account, what I can do with a hard grad filter, which I use all the time with my sunset images. The in LR filter does the same thing, but with an image that is already taken! Now, don't worry, I still believe in getting things "right" in camera! I am not much for post processing. But there are times when I can "save" an image due to the abilities of post processing.

For the image above, I did use, on the lens, a hard grad filter, made by Cokin. Its a nice filter and what I love about it is that it sure can add some colors to a nice, sometimes colorless, sunset. The sunset above, was not colorless! But I guess this phase was. Usually color is not a part of a sunset until after the sun has set! So before the sunsets, I still like to capture images, knowing they may or may not be usable! And once in a while, I actually take an image OF the sun! And this is one such as that. As you can see! SO after I put the image on the computer, I realized, I can use the LR3 grad filter on it! So, for this image, I set up the grad filter, from right to left, instead of top to bottom! At the end of the day, I was able to make the sun a little less bright, and lower the exposure ONLY on the side of the sun! I have another image that I did the same thing to, and it turned out good, but I want to re do the image, I KNOW I can do better! But for now, I hope you enjoy this image. In camera, I used the B+W ND106 as well as the Cokin hard grad filter.

Please, enjoy!