Good to be indoors today!

Richard Charpentier Arizona, HDR, Notes from Rich, Photomatix, RLC Design, Workshops 3 Comments

Yesterday was the absolutely right day to be out taking pictures for this “workshop weekend.” And today was spot on for being inside and talking software and post processing. See, blowing snow with near with rapid accumulation just doesn’t seem like the right time to be taking pictures……in my humble opinion!

Today was day 2 of the weekend workshop for HDR workflow here in Prescott.  Yesterday was a great day down in Vulture, and today we picked up the session on the software side of things.  You know, you’ve gotten home from a fun shoot and now you’re looking to offload images, make your picks, and get into some post production work!  Ah, the excitement!

This morning we were going to do a little shooting around town to gather a few more images to work with for the post processing session.  Unfortunately Mother Nature showed up with some foul weather.  Cold winds, colder rain, and then some more of that snow stuff we’ve been seeing…….

I won’t complain too much.  Living in Arizona for 3 years now I’ve learned that you should always be happy to receive precipitation.  Never turn it away!

So, we started into the workflow segment of the class early today.  And honestly, that was fine.  We used the time well, covered a lot more detail regarding Lightroom setup, catalog management, and many of the finer points of what Lightroom has to offer.  And it certainly has a lot to offer.

While we were discussing Lightroom’s usage we came across the same theme several times.  Photoshop seems to be the tool for super heavy lifting when post processing, and Lightroom seems to have stepped up to be the tool of choice for most of the simpler work needed after you’ve offloaded your images.  So, how much do you really need Photoshop now?  The jury was left out on that one, but you can seriously do a ton of work with Lightroom today.  Wonder what the final incarnation of Lightroom 3 will look like with all the Beta Testers’ feedback…….

As we worked forward with the workshop today I couldn’t help but look out the window.  The room we were using has an entire wall of windows, and I was facing not only today’s participants, but also the outside world.  And as the day progressed the weather got downright nasty.  Wind and snow, accumulation on the roads, and the question popped into my mind, “Hey, is this going to stop or are we really having another legit snow storm?”

It worked out that the “squall” tapered off, and the melting commenced.  By the time we ended today’s session a light drizzle was going on, and most of the snow had melted off of my truck.

I think we had a pretty good time today.  And my overall gut feel says that future workshops will improve and get even better.  We covered a great deal, and talked about so many ways to approach the same image and really make it your own artistic endeavor.  That was a lot of fun.  Personally, I enjoy seeing what other people do with their work as much as I enjoy creating my own!  🙂

After we finally broke up the session this evening I made my way home.  Very chilly, very wet, and extremely gray.  That was the scene at the Airstream.  Didn’t diminish what I found to be an extremely fun day.  When the weather outside is frightful, get together with a few folks and talk shop…..or Photoshop…..or even Photoshop Lightroom!  🙂

Finally, I wanted to point out a fun little theme in the previous post and this current post.  I focused my attention yesterday on some window shots, and more specifically trying to make some fun HDR’d window shots.  These images are in homage of Jason’s recent post “ode to windows,” over at CanonBlogger.  Okay, that wasn’t really the title of his post, just me being a wise guy.  You can check out his actual post here.  I suppose the next step would be a haiku written by a photo blogger regarding windows.  We’ll just escalate the entire concept to a new level……

See what happens when I step away from the blog for a few days?  I get all pent up and turn into quite the wise apple.  Guess I’ll have to work on my regular blogging pattern……  🙂

Of course, if somebody out there does create a haiku dedicated to windows, please be sure to pass me the link…….  🙂

Comments 3

  1. Post
    Author

Leave a Reply