davidrosen

Crystal Beach, ON, Canada

Not trying to hijack this thread (I can see much of interest on 'both' sides), but to me, an ancillary issue is the 'cloning out' of unwanted detail or irrelevant material. Anyone any thoughts ?

If we consider digital technology on the timeline with painters, Daguerre, and film, they all changed the methodology of art. Digital photography does not necessarily have to be a technique of “catch all” and then cull like the fisherman and his net, or the miner and his mining pan. Some photographers are very intentional and methodical. I wish I was more like that. But for now I have to cast my net.

Different cameras have different sensor aspect ratios, which is a compelling indication that there’s no ideal format lurking out there. I’ve never seen a benefit to letting my images be constrained by someone else’s engineering decision (and yes, I used to “crop” my slides with opaque tape). I usually shoot with a particular crop or format in mind for an image, and it’s rarely the one that my camera tries to dictate.

I thought I wanted all my images to at least match the camera’s native ratio even when I crop. But 1) I think most digital cameras offer at least two aspect ratios (my MFT offers two); 2) Lightroom offers a handful of standard aspect ratios; 3) square often begs to be used sort of like a photo begging to be b&w when viewed originally in color. So perhaps it is the artist who decides and not the film or camera manufacturer.

Good points. And masterpieces can be overrated anyway ...

 

When I made the (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek comment about liking photos I don’t like, I wasn’t thinking of older photos re-emerging. That just became a bit of a fun tangent, which does have use for me.

 

What I was really talking about were the cases for me where taste follows photo rather than the other way ‘round. My own and others.

 

There are times I really don’t like a photo but it has a kind of depth or what I’ll call a dissonant resonance that makes me keep looking, keep trying. Not so much like the proverbial train wreck you can’t turn away from but more like that awkward and outcast high school kid no one likes who just fascinates you for some reason. I call those my taste-changers and they’ve been really important to me over the years.

 

I’ve seen photos by famous photographers that do not speak to me at all. My closest critic is quick to say what she likes and doesn’t like. Then I’ll “explain” why the photo “speaks” to me.

My favorites are the ones that sneak up on me and make me feel a little strange and unfamiliar.

 

To each her own. Might be enough for me but I’m also a glutton - always want more.

 

Some of the photos I like most are the ones I don’t like.

There is some truth to that statement. There are bad photos I just cannot bring myself to delete. I guess they "speak" to me in some way. Is not that a sound?

Sorry, not enough for what?

Enough to say only the photographer needs to be the viewer (that is, if you consider the act of photographing more than mere vacation or family event snapshots).

“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” —Ansel Adams

So, although the photographer can view his or her photos, Adams distinguished between photographer and viewer. I contend it is not enough for the photographer to be the only viewer.

David, I have fond memories of Crystal Beach, having spent a lot of my life in Buffalo. Have you been to the old lighthouse in Ridgeway?

No I haven’t but my old boss left the very same message on my Instagram account. He also grew up in Buffalo and said everybody went to the midway in Crystal Beach. They just completed a new beach for the residents.

My current computer was built in 2012, and is showing it. The new Topaz AI software does a great job, but this machine takes 15+ minutes to process one image. I'm at the RAM limit (16GB DDR3 non-ECC) and cannot upgrade from the Radeon HD 7470 GPU. I figure that by the end of this year, I will really need a new desktop. I am looking at some of the used/refurb Dell or HP workstations that proliferate on eBay. This one, for example. (Usual disclaimer.) While these are older, they use Xeon processors that support multi-cores and huge amounts of RAM. Would one of these with a more recent 4/8GB graphics card do the job as well as a new "consumer" machine that would probably run over $1,000 with added RAM, etc. (A note: I have several 2TB and 3TB SATA drives already that could go into a new box.) Is this an option, or are there other things I need to consider? (I have to run Windows for my dayjob, so no Mac or Linux please.) I could build a machine if the savings were real, but I'm not sure they are.

 

Thanks all,

Les

Does you heart sink a little because nobody replies to your posts (I do)? I’m still running an older Dell workstation that has not slowed down enough to enable me to convince my spouse that I must invest in another pc. I’ve been looking at Dell XPS systems and there may be used/refurbished ones but I have not checked. I’ll start with new because it will be a long term investment and I want to choose cpu, ram, storage and graphics. But cost is a consideration. I think intel i9 will be great for me and 32 gb ram. I’m not a gamer so graphics will be selected carefully. I noticed Apple’s recently announced high end graphic design systems utilize AMD cpu’s

Exposure: +0.5; Highlights: -100; Shadows: +32; Contrast: -91; Whites: +16; Blacks: -8; Vibrance: +13;

Tone Curve: Red 98/60%, Blue 97% (about one-third from upper left)

When posting images for the post-processing challenge, I often have to hit the 'reset' button so people can work on what came out of the camera. Of course, this is done on a virtual copy; but, if i had really wanted to process an image, I would have progressed to .PSD or other file formats in the software that I used. So, If I had reset the original image in LR, no big deal.

Also, if someone utilizes and add-in to Lightroom for edits, virtual copies will not work, but the concept will still apply.

When posting images for the post-processing challenge, I often have to hit the 'reset' button so people can work on what came out of the camera. Of course, this is done on a virtual copy; but, if i had really wanted to process an image, I would have progressed to .PSD or other file formats in the software that I used. So, If I had reset the original image in LR, no big deal.

Good idea. So the copy does not have to be virtual.

I want to share an important element of my work on images in Lightroom (Classic CC - whatever the current version). It was greatly influenced by Peter Krogh in his book The DAM Book Guide to Organizing Your Photos with Lightroom 5. The fact that the book was written when Lightroom 5 was current is irrelevant with regard to the latest version because his concepts absolutely apply to the current versions as well. He may not be as strict as the process I describe below, but he was my influence.

What I want to share is how I minimize the risk of editing an image unintentionally. I now only edit virtual copies of an original image. Editing is only done from a collection and not from the folder where the original image is stored. The virtual copy only exists in the folder with the original image, and in the collection. There could be multiple virtual copies with different edits of the same original image, but these virtual copies would reside in separate collections.

After I have completed edits to the image, I update the metadata Copy Name to match the collection name. The only place where this virtual copy can be accessed is from the folder where the original image is stored or in the collection. If I restrict edits to collections only, the risk of unintentional edits is minimized (but not guaranteed). All of the virtual copies of a single image can be found in the folder where the original is saved, but the only other location for those virtual images would be in separate collections.