Difference

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Alley Wall – Durham, NC – June 2009

Nikon D200, exp 1/50 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400; 18-200mm Nikkor VR zoom @ 36mm

When you run across images with camera info provided you should bear in mind that this information alone will probably not get you the image you’re trying to reproduce with the same settings. Take the image above for example. I wanted to isolate the arched window to draw the attention of the viewer and separate it from the wall. This required a pen tool trace around the rectangular brick by the window -pulling it to it’s own layer and converting the layer below, the ‘wall’ layer, into black and white.

Nailing it in camera should always be your goal, but often just a simple Curves adjustment in Photoshop or Lightroom makes the image stand out and strips away a lot of the ‘dullness’ that seems to be evident in digital images; whether RAW or JPEG. Then of course you may want to saturate the color or decrease/add vibrance and any number of image ‘tweaks’. It provides a lot of artistic freedom as well as practical ‘darkroom’ adjustments. Burn, Dodge, etc..Almost limitless possibilities! If you have some of these tools you can check out my friend’s article/tutorial about Single Image HDR Creation -amazing what you can do! Check it out