September 19th, 2008
California poppy - B&W with warm tint
I’m a big fan of Adobe’s Lightroom - a great piece of software that makes managing and publishing your photos
almost enjoyable. There has been a recent proliferation of third-party plug-ins and
presets for LR and today I played with the (free)
WOW presets by Jack Davis.
I tried these out on some old pics of California poppies that self-seed in our back yard. This simple poppy is one my favourite exotic flowers. It’s a close call against a single Ranunculus and a dog-rose. (All very simple blooms I now notice - what is that saying about me?)
Original
The first pic is a black & white conversion that emphasises the difference between yellow and white, with a slightly warm tint and a strong vignetting.
California poppies - cool white balance
Original
The colouring in this pic is the result of nothing other than applying LR’s auto white balance - misguided in terms of real colour but interesting for this image. Presets in LR don’t do anything you can’t do using the built-in controls (unlike Photoshop plugins and filters) and the usual selling point is that presets streamline your workflow. The benefit for me though is that other people’s presets adjust settings in a way that I might not try. In this case I never use auto white balance and would never have seen this great colour effect. More generally presets make use of multiple adjustments that you might not try in your normal workflow. The implementation of presets in LR means that you can just move your cursor over each preset and see the result in the navigation pane.
California poppy - B&W with cool tint
Original
This is another B&W conversion that picks up a very subtle difference between yellow and orange bringing out the contrast along the edge of the stamens. A slightly cool tint and some light vignetting is also applied. I love the way the background has been rendered in this version.
In case you’re wondering, the title of this post is a tribute to the recently departed Richard Wright. Set the controls for the heart of the sun is a favourite track from the Floyd albums, A Saucerful of Secrets and UmmaGumma.
Entry Filed under: Photography
2 Comments Add your own
1. Nina | September 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Well I’ve learnt something new about you Mark - a Pink Floyd fan. I would never have guessed either. Lovely work once again, and my artistic angst is that I don’t know how to use these tools to make my photography better. I even purchased Aperture this year….and it is just taking up space on my hard drive.
PS I was offline again and just got my ADSL back today. A long story, one that I will not bore you with.
PSS You were in my dream the other night. I am hating work (real life), and I dreamt that I came back to work in Canberra because of it. You were at my job and gave me a hug. Made me feel better!
2. Mark | September 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Thought you’d been quiet! Good to have you back online.
Sorry to hear that the new job isn’t what you’d hoped. You’re always welcome back in Canberra (despite what you’ve said about us in the past).
Glad I was able to make you feel better. Any time you need a hug just say.
Now go watch some Aperture tutorials and get fired up!
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