A.D. Drumm Images, LLC – Landscape, Portrait, and Fine Art Photography in Rochester MN Photography

NAPP published a procedure to give someone a look similar to the Avatar posters, which I thought would be fun to try. I went looking for a reasonable photo of myself to play with. Most of those Lynne took have me wearing glasses, which just doesn’t work, and I didn’t want to spend the time removing them in Photoshop. But I found this one, and its resolution was good enough for playing.

I went to work and followed the procedure from NAPP’s Down & Dirty Tricks. It’s pretty straightforward, and worked pretty well. I wish I had smoothed my wrinkles a bit first, and I didn’t bother boosting the lips which, in this photo, are pretty much obscured by the beard. Did any of the Na’vi have a beard? I don’t recall seeing any. The tip leaves you to fend for yourself for the final added text, but no issues there.

Today, I was watching one of Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom Killer Tips. Matt has been exploring many ways to use the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom. With this little blue-guy business still fresh in my head, I began wondering if I couldn’t do nearly the same thing using just Lightroom. The answer is, yes! In fact, it was not very difficult – in some ways easier than in Photoshop.

I still would have needed Photoshop to add the glowing dots and the text, but all-in-all, I like it. Remembering the wrinkles, I toned them down a bit using clarity, and ended up with a blue I prefer over the original. Someday, perhaps I’ll add those final touches. Or not. It was just fun to do.

I attended the wedding of the son of friends on Saturday – as a guest, not the photo guy. But I took my camera. Since there was an official photographer, I tried to stay out of her way and mainly took shots of neighbors and former neighbors. I took some video of the first dance on the Canon 5D MkII, and did grab a few shots of the bride and her dad and groom and his mom dancing.

I can’t really attend something like this without thinking about shots, light, angles, where I would be. Oh – there’s a great shot waiting to be taken. I was pleased to see the photographer in the action taking those shots. Her eye must be similar to mine. I’ve been to weddings where I’ve been surprised the photographer was no where to be seen when I thought shots were waiting to be taken.

The shot above of the bride and her dad was one I liked. However, one thing that is always there in reception shots, looming in the background, is the ubiquitous EXIT sign. I can’t tell you how much I hate those. I try to avoid them when possible, but in this case, they were abundant, and I was trying to stay out of the photographer’s line of site (not always successfully, I’m afraid).

I’ve mentioned Photoshop CS5’s new content-aware fill feature. I’ve tried it in various situations with mixed results. Sometimes it does pretty well and sometimes I’ve had to finish with the conventional tools. But this is a great example, I think, of the tool working well. This is the before shot.

You can see these exit signs are also emergency lights. Huge, big shadows, ugly as sin. I actually tried to clone this away, and it was not easy. Getting the luminance and shade just right was tough. Let’s try content-aware fill. I did a rough selection around the monstrosity, shift-backspace, enter. Done. Wow! Yes, sometimes it just works and works well.