Walk my Time Line in LightRoom

 Hi everyone.   I thought I would put down the steps I am NOW taking from image to the final spot the images live.  Its like my timeline for processing.

 I am not shooting RAW.  I updated my LR so it knew my camera, uploaded test images and it took forever, honestly I can not tell much difference between my large format and raw so I went back to what I am comfie with.

Last month I was asked for a couple photos that had my watermark on it and I needed to remove that.  No big deal but would have been better if I had two copies, one with my watermark and one without in a larger size.   Now I am re thinking what I have been doing and how I save my work.

The steps I am now taking might be useful to you if you are stuck in my rut.  Geee, it might still be a rut in the future, but for now its better than what I did before.  Here goes:

* take my photos and import into LR

*review what I want to keep and get rid of and delete the unwanted photos.

*review the saved images, mark a couple I want to work on 

*develop one image and pop it over to Elements for more edits if needed

* Once finished in Elements I do a  "save" for LR which ends up as a psd 

*I now go back into LR to export to a folder on my external storage!   

*Now I can choose to export a huge file like 4MP as a .jpg to any folder I want with a name!

*I can also export another file as an email size into another folder for sharing in places like the web and Flicker.

*leave my watermark off unless I need it, as the small file sizes are not worth stealing.

So what I have created right now are two folders, one that has LARGE files and one folder that has the smaller files for sharing.  I have done this because the LARGE photos are ones that are for sales.  And of course inside that I have catagory folders like Flowers or Birds.  

I hope that these steps might help some of you crate a visual walk through your work with LR and Elements.  

Celebrating and Victory Dance

 Life can be so strange at times, just when I think I have nothing to share that is exciting or new, I go ahead and put it out there and Pizzaz...something amazing happens.  My images get noticed, get chosen and become part of a bigger picture. 

Now you might wonder what I think of when I go out with my camera but on this day we went out with family on vacation to this great stretch of beach, I knew I was looking for birds so I took my lens that would work best.

I shot so many images that looked the same, similar, color, attitudes and once home the big process began to widdled down to just a few.  Choosing just one or two out of hundreds to share.  Big job.  Flicker noticed, and I hope the world does too.   The big thing I find most interesting in photography is that what you might consider sorta random, might not be random in another persons eyes.  

Keep shooting, sharing and enjoying life through your camera lens. 

Brighten With Citrus MADE EXPLORER

EXPLORER!   Brighten with citrus was the prompt for out week 33 of Be Still 52.  I had to wait to get to the store to buy some lemons and oranges, ended up choosing lemons to work.  Its been rainy and dark and the yellow were a pop of freshness I needed.  Here I used some quilt fabric for my backdrop which really worked out well, I used a Friday Find for the little dish the lemons are sitting in, a single wine glass that has survived the years and an old silk flower.  Couldn't get my lemons to look interesting so got the knife out and sliced one up, figured I could use the slices in a pitcher of ice water.  Delish.   I love lemon water sitting out in a pitcher with lots of ice.  My glass is always full.

This is called Essence of Citrus, and I used a blackish fabric and a texture from Kim Klassen called more magic, I loved the little words that sorta brought the image away from looking like a staged still.  The little pitcher was a find at good will as was the glass bottle with the cork.  This was part of Week 33 also.  Same theme as above.

I would never on my own gather and create settings without these great prompts.  Its something I look forward to and its enriched my eye and creativity so much being part of Be Still 52 and now The Studio!

Dear Dreamer made Explorer

I am so tickled to see this made Explorer.  I am so surprised when this happens and I have no idea why images are chosen, but it sure puts a smile on my face.

These old roses are a find from good will, they were in the clutter of this and that, I took a chance on them as a prop..I am so glad I did.  I might add this book is also a good will find and my books are digital now but I miss having nice books around.  Real books are like having friends sitting there with their own thoughts and words just waiting to be shared.  This is an old readers digest book, a book of Curiosities!  Last Saturday I set up  a little table with props and just played.  I have several images I chose to keep from that shoot but this one that made Explorer is not the one I like best.
I used only a slight watercolor filter and a post card texture.  I titled it Dear Dreamer and gave it this description on Flicker:  Dear Dreamer, while reading a book the other day I thought of you and decided to send you a post card.  

Spools made Explorer on Flicker

Its another gloomy day and I am digging through some of my older photos, catching up on some Be Still prompts that never got processed.  One prompt that was shared in our Flicker group asked for spools.   Everyone had such amazing vintage spools of all sorts.   I sorta just stepped back from that exercise because I had nothing as exotic as a vintage spool.   Everyones images were beyond captivating.

Since I am a spinner I gave a try at using my bobbins for the spool prompt.  I have spun a graduated polwarth wool with tussah silk blend.   These singles on the spools have not been plied yet but I thought the colors were pretty and with the little scissors might offer something "spoolish".  

If I were to say something about this, it might be that be still is not the feeling it invokes for me, rather ...get busy!   Get it finished, get it knitted and spin some more!

Next morning I find this image has made Explorer on Flicker - I am SO over the moon about it.  

Fav 3 of 2014 ~ BeStill week 30

The end of the year and week 30 is wrapping up with a prompt to choose a set of your favorite

pictures from 2014.  It was hard to choose, I wanted some of my images to blend with 

similar softness and colors and the blue hydrangea never fails to make great 

images.  These were taken throughout the year and the center image was taken in

December with some of my dried hydrangea flowers, and it made Flickers

Explorer!  Now that is the way to end the year with a bang...

I hope to learn how to play on instragram this January.  I finally managed

to get the app working on my phone and digital life is whirring at warp speed

around me.   Will I be able to step aboard or loose my footing as I try and jump in.

~ snap~

Setting for 2015's First Shoot

 Happy New Year 2015

That is going to take some getting use to.  Not that long ago 2015 was a far off date in si fi flicks.  Now its marking the start of my new year behind my lens. 

I am inspired by light this Jan 1st.

 Its really ugly outside, freezing drizzle, cold and the only warmth to be found is under my quilt with a book.  It just nagged on me so much I decided to see if I could create something new and fresh inside in my work area. 

I decided to drag out some of my quilt fabric and use as a backdrop, and what the heck, I even pulled out some black!

I went for gold tones and things that projected
that warm feel of the sun and garden flowers.  Now that I have discovered that fabric is not for quilting, I might have to buy some more with a different minds eye!  

This leaf image is Red Bud dried and its hanging from a clamp over my table with fabric way in the background.  Used Aperture Priority and got in close with my mighty macro lens.

 This blue flower is in front of some black fabric, but I could not resist using a little fractal brush with it.  It felt sorta flat and now it has more whispy breezy freshness to it.

This blue flower is fake!   Yikes, I had to resort to what was at hand.  All my flowers are fake. 

 Its not such a great photo stand, but it works.  My rolling drawers stacked with plastic containers for height, my foam core board and with all this in place I can move it around on the wheels.  Its pretty ugly but it works.

 I used a curtain rod to hold a lace cloth which I have pinned some fabric to as a backdrop.  Its really busy batik fabric but one of my favorite fabrics I have saved and I used it in the first triptych image.  You can see how the fabric just blurs away into softness.

I took a class ages ago from Brenda Tharp on Macro Photography.  It was so great and I remember quite a bit from that workshop.  One thing I got back then was this very cool arm clamp.  The arm is jointed and moves every which way and here its holding my redbud leaves with seed pods.   How I WISH I had gotten more of these when they were to be had.   

This is also how far I shot this from the background for the leaf photo.   With the large aperture priority, my subject as far from background as I could get in my small area and shooting close as I could get I managed to create some feel of outside. 

When I processed my images in LR and PS Elements I added some tweeks to those images but the real work was trying to create light.   One thing you can't see is the pole light I have.  Its just plain ole lightbulbs and the pole light has 3 lights I can point in different directions, honestly I think I paid $12 for it at Walmart.  

Now that I have documented something exciting for the first day of the year its time to hop on over to Flicker and post my work.   Happy shooting and Happy New Year.