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Greetings,
I hope you’re having a good pre-winter! It’s been cold, dark and wet here in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been keeping myself busy indoors by learning new stuff. Much of it fun (learning new photo processing techniques), some of it (learning QuickBooks) is a chore.
In my last newsletter I mentioned my recent surgery. Just wanted to let you know (because I assume it’s been in the forefront of your thoughts) that recovery has gone extremely well.
Anyway….
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Sean Bagshaw videos
Back in October I was one of the many instructors at the Out of Chicago event in Newport, OR. I met lots of people there, and one of the nicest was Sean Bagshaw. You may have heard of him; he also does workshops and tours. But he may be better known as the “Luminosity Mask Guy” for his many, many, many video tutorials on using luminosity masks and Tony Kuyper’s luminosity mask panels for Photoshop.
Since I returned from Oregon, I’ve bought a couple of Sean's video courses on using luminosity masks and other Photoshop techniques, and I've learned quite a bit (and I really enjoy learning new stuff). Sean’s videos are really good, probably because he's a former science teacher, and is very good at creating tutorials.
For example, I always found it way too hard to clone out lens flare, so I never really gave it too much of a try. But it’s not really all that hard if you just know the tools to use and Sean has a tutorial on it.
He also has a great YouTube channel. If you’re one who learns better from video tutorials they’re very informative and well produced.
All this to say: go check out Sean’s website and YouTube channel
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Speaking of lens flare….
Based on one of Sean’s tutorials (Frequency Separation, which involves separating color from texture), here’s a before and after example of removing lens flare. You can see I left some in because I actually like some of it.
Before: with all Lightroom adjustments and no flare removal:
After: I've removed the prominent green lens flare in the lower right:
This image may need a bit more refining, but I can say that using this technique is much, much more effective than using the clone stamp tool on its own.
I set up the frequency separation using one of the actions in Tony Kyuper's TK7 panel.
(I've no affiliation with either Sean or Tony)
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Still time to join us in Death Valley
Cliff Zenor and I are headed to Death Valley Feb. 24-28, 2020 and there’s still time for you to join us!
Death Valley has quite an array of amazing landscapes to discover and photograph, plus we’ve planned this trip to be around the new moon, which means starry skies, and we’ll be taking advantage of those, weather permitting.
Because of Death Valley National Park group size restrictions, this workshop is strictly limited to 10 participants. For more information, visit my Death Valley page.
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Coastal photography
I’ve got a couple of workshops coming up in May that will see us spending a good amount of time on coastal photography.
May 13-17 is my spring Olympic National Park workshop. We’ll visit rain forests, streams, waterfalls, Lake Crescent, and the beaches.
May 20-24 Cliff Zenor and I will be in Bandon, OR, one of the best places on the coast for sea stacks. We’ll also visit lighthouses, an awesome English garden and one of the best places for crashing waves. For more on our Bandon workshop, visit the Bandon page on my site.
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Sitka
There are just two spaces remaining in my Sitka whales and More tour August 3-8. During this tour we’ll have at least three excursions on Sitka Sound to photograph Humpback whales (and other whales if we get lucky), sea otters, seals, sea lions, sea birds, fishing boats and more.
On land we’ll visit harbors, Totem Park, the Tongass rainforest, downtown Sitka, and we’ll take in the great views from Harbor Mountain.
We may even get the chance to photograph some raptors. I’m still working on that one, so no promises. Yet.
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Topaz holiday offer
I’ve no affiliation with Topaz, I’m just really satisfied with the two products of theirs I own: DeNoise AI and Gigapixel AI. And for the next two weeks (until Dec. 25), Topaz Labs is running a 25% off special. Check it out here.
Gigapixel AI is an image enlargement program that's getting a lot of great reviews. In fact, the aforementioned Sean Bagshaw recently posted a video where he ran a comparison between several programs that perform image enlargement. Gigapixel AI came out on top. Check out Sean's video here.
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Happy Holidays!
I’m still waiting on that new tripod from Colorado Tripod Company that I mentioned in the last newsletter.
I contacted them recently and found out that they are still in the development and testing stage of their Series 4 tripod, the one I ordered.
But once I get it and can give it a try, I’ll post a review. Until then, I’ve plenty of indoor projects and tasks to keep me busy. And out of the wet and cold.
I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday. I’ll see you in 2020!
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