A Walk in the Woods

[[Geoff Slocock]]

This afternoon's location was piece of Epping Forest that I get to quite often. I nearly always shoot in RAW and it takes me time to get my images together. But here for starters is a Faroese goose that seems almost to be posing for the camera.

I will post more later, but comments are OK... I will simply add them in later, too.



Yesterday was seriously wet weather and the streams and rivulets were in spate.

[[malamoucha]]

Hi Geoff
couldn't you get a closer shot of the brook. I feel it would do the shot a lot of good.
Just an idea

[[Geoff Slocock]]

Hi Martin,

I took about twenty or thirty shots on Wednesday and about half of them were of these miniature water features. I have now got to go back to processing the RAW files; and these last few days have been so busy on the forum. There have been issues about off topic posting and declaration of camera information, members with logging in issues, and new members who have not been getting activation emails.

This incarnation of the forum is still new and bending the software in clever ways and getting more or less everyone agreed to changes is demanding.

This a bit like a mad version of the Windows Seven adverts that we get on British TV. Each and every not very clever punter ends up agreeing that Windows Seven is something they could have invented, they actually say they invented it, too. Well, I think Windows Seven is krapp.

Getting a forum organised is about trying to keep everyone happy, too. Yes you do have to be all things to all men; but the diplomacy is time consuming.

But I have probably got better miniature water feature shots than that one, so will do some more processing.

Geoff

[[Geoff Slocock]]

[[Geoff Slocock]]

These days, I tend not to recover highlights or shadows in Raw Therapee. Rather I concentrate on getting contrast set up in the conventional sense and in luminance and getting the exposure adjusted. Because I am more confident about applying tone mapping in the Gimp, I make an allowance for the amount of exposure and under exposure that I can tolerate, at pre-processing.

Pre processing is always something of this game of nudging things into place at the foundations so as you can then go onto build upwards.

[[malamoucha]]

thumbs up on the first and last photos. Thanks a lot. Really like them

[[Geoff Slocock]]

Martin,

Part of the difficulties of knowing what your picture will look like when developing from RAW is that you can only make an educated guess about how good you can make your picture look.

I used to watch my father in the dark room, producing prints from negatives. With RAW processing you start with a slightly darkened image and then mould its qualities for your purposes.

The statuesque goose and the contemplative stream gazing shot are it seems to me to part serendipity and part accumulated skill and resourcefulness. The trial and error part of the learning is what amazes me, when looking back on my experience over four years. It was painful for me at first, too.

Geoff