Out for a drive in the hills II

So LoneStar, you could simply throw on a blank layer, change it to overlay, select a white paint brush, (I set it to about 50%) and paint with light. I do a lot of work this way.

I may have gone overboard, hope you don't mind my edit below, but I see what you are after with a Texas sunset. Add as much light where you want. I think the thing looks great the way you took it!

Lonnie Mac wrote in post #13419060
So mad at myself. I was coming back from New Braunfels a few weeks ago and saw a scene JUST like this (sans mountains of course!), had my cam with me too... I was too lazy to stop!

Bin there and done that as well but I don't think we're alone......There will be other opportunites down the road.

@Lonestar,

Thanks for your understanding. The pics a so much the same yet different at the same time. Ha, We live so far apart yet we are still in hay bale country.

Just a thought. you have hay bales available, there has to be old barns, farm trucks, tractors, thrashers or hay rakes etc laying around somewhere. This stuff is slowly disappearing and won't be replaced. Old and wrecky is great and if it's old and wrecky, shoot it. Old barns are being torn down for safety reasons, tractors are being sold off to collectors or for there scrap value. I've been shooting this kind of stuff with a Nikon L2 or a Canon SD1200. Neither is wide enough or long enough. The G12 with 28 - 140 will be great an I am looking forward to getting out there and shooting things. I have a couple of places scoped out already.

Note: I mentioned tractors. They are a dime a dozen. The ones I am talking about are on steel wheels.

Lonnie Mac wrote in post #13419085
So LoneStar, you could simply throw on a blank layer, change it to overlay, select a white paint brush, (I set it to about 50%) and paint with light. I do a lot of work this way.

I may have gone overboard, hope you don't mind my edit below, but I see what you are after with a Texas sunset. Add as much light where you want. I think the thing looks great the way you took it!

Thanks for the edit and the info. on what you did. I use overlays sometimes but usually at about 10%. By the way, I'm no longer in Texas. I've been in Montana for over 13 years now. I miss Texas sometimes though. I don't really enjoy all the snow and temps that can get down to 30 below.

Norman B wrote in post #13420113
Bin there and done that as well but I don't think we're alone......There will be other opportunites down the road.

@Lonestar,

Thanks for your understanding. The pics a so much the same yet different at the same time. Ha, We live so far apart yet we are still in hay bale country.

Just a thought. you have hay bales available, there has to be old barns, farm trucks, tractors, thrashers or hay rakes etc laying around somewhere. This stuff is slowly disappearing and won't be replaced. Old and wrecky is great and if it's old and wrecky, shoot it. Old barns are being torn down for safety reasons, tractors are being sold off to collectors or for there scrap value. I've been shooting this kind of stuff with a Nikon L2 or a Canon SD1200. Neither is wide enough or long enough. The G12 with 28 - 140 will be great an I am looking forward to getting out there and shooting things. I have a couple of places scoped out already.

Note: I mentioned tractors. They are a dime a dozen. The ones I am talking about are on steel wheels.

It seems that when I see an old barn or other equipment I can't find a place to pull my car over. Do do you have the G12? It sounds like a really nice point and shoot. I would love to hear about what you think of it.

Norman B wrote in post #13418636
1- The darkroom you speak of. Is that a program on its own or a section within a program such as photshop.

Back in the film days, that is how they did post-processing on pictures!

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Darkroom

emelvee wrote in post #13420373
Back in the film days, that is how they did post-processing on pictures!

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Darkroom

Ah yes, the ole darkroom. That's where I cut my eye teeth. Guess that's why I still hang around the darker pictures because of the B&W.

emelvee wrote in post #13420373
Back in the film days, that is how they did post-processing on pictures!

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Darkroom

Ah, Thanks. I didn't make the connection to film and that explains it. I have a tiny little bit of experience in a dark room and know that learning how to take the film out of the canister and put it on the spool in a light bag takes some skill to learn. The rest for a basic course was pretty easy.

@Lonestar,

Yes,I just bought the G12 but haven't had a chance to use it yet in any serious way.

Pulling over to take pictures can be a problem but there is an easy solution. Make note of the location and make it a target destination in days to come. There has to be a service road etc somewhere and you can always come back later. Going onto peoples property has to be done with care. I make every effort to contact the owner for permission or a neighbor and let them know what I am doing. (Some places are abandoned) This has benefits in that they may tell you where other wrecky stuff is. Sometimes there is a pretty good story behind the item you want to shoot. The majority of farmers are more than happy to talk about their farm and days gone by in my experience. I only ask general questions related to farming and never anything personal. Another thing I do is return with a 4 x 6 print(s) of whatever I took and give it to them. This has produced opportunities in some cases for other interesting things to shoot.

One other point, I am originally from Toronto, Ontario and don't know a thing about farming. I tell the farmer that and that my interest is personal only. The family farm is like a national icon in both Canada and the US and it's disappearing. Farmers know this and don't mind talking about days gone by at all. All I am doing is capturing a piece of the past while it is still there.

If this is an area you or anyone else may be interested in, I can give you some ideas on how to approach a farmer that has worked pretty well for me. Your 18 - 55 would be very adequate for this type of shooting. There are times when a 24 would be nice but not all that often.

Hi Norm, yes I forget how new someone may be to digital photography. I'm very new to the form but I've been playing with photos for a while now.
Take what ever little program you have and play with the colors, brightness etc on your photos and see what you can do with them. Always do it with a save version, not the original as you can definitely degrade the photo and come out with something you don't really want, so keep the original away somewhere. Gimp is a free photo editing system much like Photoshop but if you are not a computer junky it will take some time to learn but it's certainly doable, but you can start by playing with what ever program came with your camera or you have on your pc now.

Most professional photographers today will tell you that taking pictures is the fun part and the least of their work, most of the time though, is spent on computer editing programs (often referred to as the digital darkroom) running their base photos through their developing work load. A digital photo is developed through editing, much like a film slide had to be in film days to bring out the best of what the camera gives you. Once you get good with editing software you can set up presets for a set of photos taken in the same lighting, put them through it in a batch process and then only tweak the gems in the batch, at least that's how I do it, but there is many different styles and takes to Post processing also.

Editorial and journalistic photography is more knowing the camera, setting it for the current conditions, and having the timing and settings right when you snap the button and very little PP (post processing). Artistic, landscape, portrait, takes more timing, framing, knowing what you can do in post and then PP to make it how you saw it. I'm not a professional,though I do contribute to a couple of stock sites, in case you wondered, but it's been an 8 hour a day hobby for the past 7 years with lots of reading and learning for me since I left my work and started traveling with my husband. He works, i take pictures or sit at a computer playing with them, and occasionally do paid shoots or work on contract. I can have almost as much fun playing with a photo and trying to make it what I want as I can taking them and since 80% of the day is poor lighting for photos (outside) there's times to play.

Norman B wrote in post #13420584
Ah, Thanks. I didn't make the connection to film and that explains it. I have a tiny little bit of experience in a dark room and know that learning how to take the film out of the canister and put it on the spool in a light bag takes some skill to learn. The rest for a basic course was pretty easy.

OH to the OP who's pictures started this form, I love the both of them, in particular the one with the sunshine coming through the clouds, beautiful lighting. I'd definitely spend time playing with that to see what possibilities I could get in post. It would be one for my wall, beautiful shot.

Lonestarlady61, I like both of your photos. I do wish the wheat in the forground on the 2nd shot was in focus though.

For the fun of it, I tried to make your first image a bit more dramatic by warming up the lower half of the image and darkening the sky a bit using a gradient filter effect.

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@Simplyphotos,

Thanks for your time in posting your reply.

I have played with things like brightness, changing hue and other basic PP tasks on the editing programs I do have. They are pretty simple but I have downloaded GIMP onto my computer and have been playing with that. I use the blemish feature in GIMP for removing unwanted spots etc on my photos. There are plenty of on line tutorials but the problem I have with those is that they go so fast, it's hard to see what icons they are clicking on. That will just take more effort on my part. You and other posters reworking the pics show the value of learning PP using software.

I would also like to try the RAW feature with the G12. It is my understand that the software for RAW that comes with the G12 is not great but it is not bad either. This will require the PP you talk about and lots learning in the interim. I also bought Dave Busch's book on the G12. There is a section in the book about PP RAW and that will be a help as well. I have found this book along with reading the users manual provided with the camera most helpful. I agree with comments made by other posters in other threads regarding the .pdf manual. It would be nice if Canon provided a hard copy but I knew that when I bought the camera.

Norman B wrote in post #13422204
I would also like to try the RAW feature with the G12. It is my understand that the software for RAW that comes with the G12 is not great but it is not bad either.

It's not as functional as Lightroom or some others, but for me, I haven't found a way to get IQ that matches DPP in Lightroom. DPP pulls out more detail and more natural colors to my eyes. Lightroom is fine for much of what I do via flickr, but when I have one I really want done right, it goes through DPP.

Winco wrote in post #13416942
How about something like this;

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/69976835@N07/6​358119489/
6351131271_03a743cbfe_​b-2 by Winco1, on Flickr

Dear god some of you guys don't know how to postprocess

ryanshoots wrote in post #13428788
It's not as functional as Lightroom or some others, but for me, I haven't found a way to get IQ that matches DPP in Lightroom. DPP pulls out more detail and more natural colors to my eyes. Lightroom is fine for much of what I do via flickr, but when I have one I really want done right, it goes through DPP.

Thanks for the info....Lots to learn for me.