Pushing On

While the Covid-19 pandemic pushes on, over one million cases have been reported in the United States, with over 1,600 cases in my county and over 2,000 in my immediate area.  Yet, the governor has partially opened the state, to commerce.  I am sorry, but this is scary to me.  Many businesses were boarded up during this time with lots of graffiti artist painted their graffiti on the boards.  Because of some of those businesses deciding to open up, many of the boards are coming down.  It seems like a waste of talent.  Why don't some of those businesses use the boards as part of their decor?  It could be that they don't want to be reminded of the times, but it is a piece of history.  Someone once said, "The reason that history repeats itself is because we don't learn from it".  Some have said that the world will not be the same after this and others have opined that perhaps we should not go back to the old ways.  Perhaps.

Focusing more on the positive, I have been listening to podcast and getting ideas for things that can help my process my photographs.  I created a preset for Lightroom, that I will use to process my photographs as I import them into Lightroom.  I also made a LUT (Look Up Table) for my colors and tones in Photoshop.  Both of those were inspired by listening to Blake Rudis' podcast on the Virtual Summit that Dave Cross put on.  Now all I can have all of my colors and tones can look the same throughout my photographs.  I am looking forward to using it on many if not all of my photographs.

I also listened to Dave Cross' podcast called "Talking Shop".  He made a suggestion about using two curves in Photoshop, one for darkening and one for lightening and then making an action to put the two curves on your layer stack.  I have been interested in trying to burn and dodge in Photoshop without using the burn and dodge tools.  It is my thought that with using a mask in Photoshop, making the mask black, then painting in white with my settings at 10% intervals for the brush and going over and over until I am satisfied with how the highlights and shadows look in my photograph.

If you think about it, every object that we see, has highlights and shadows.  Photographs are two dimensional objects having only a length and width.  It is putting highlights and shadows in your picture that helps it become three dimensional helping it to have depth.  Having the ability to dodge and burn will really help in my processing abilities.  I am looking forward to making the action and putting it in my library in Photoshop so that I can use it in my post processing.

I am itching to get outside and take pictures but I am doing my best not to dwell on the negative and focusing on the positive.  I hope that you are as well.