Ghost on the bridge

Sometimes you just take a really bad picture. You review your images and you wonder how that happened. You wonder how you could have got the exposure wrong, how the focus can be so far out – in fact, what exactly are you focussed on? Certainly not the subject of your photograph! So press the ‘X’ key on your keyboard, forget about it – you’ll delete it later, if you ever remember to.

Then one day, maybe weeks later, maybe even years, you do stumble across that thing in your catalogue that disappointed you so. It’s still there, festering in your catalogue. Right, time to take action. Select it and press the delete key. It makes no difference whether you press the delete key hard or soft, but there is something cathartic about giving it a good, firm ‘tap’. Begone!

Western Australia, Day 1 – Geraldton

29 May 2016

This was not my first visit to Australia, but it was my first time to Western Australia, and my first opportunity to visit the Australian site for the low-frequency telescope of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Travel the long distance from Europe to Perth (via Singapore), check into the hotel and then try to sleep it all off. The next day, a quick flight up WA’s Coral Coast to the small town of Geraldton, where the SKA’s operations centre will likely be based.

Not wanting to succumb to the jet-lag too soon, we decided to get out for a bite to eat and a stroll along the beach front. Of course, I took my camera with me.

bamboo

With the release of the new version of Lightroom this week, I’m sure that I was one of the many that dove straight in with the upgrade. The new pricing on the product coupled to the improved and new functionality (maps and books! – we’ve been crying out for books since version 1!!) made it a bit of a no-brainer.

That’s the problem with no-brainers – no brains are involved. After happily downloading, installing and converting my catalog to the new format, I joined one of the many who quickly realized that their ability to use 3rd party plugins had been rendered useless. No more Nik filters, no more PS Elements. On to the Nik Software update sites, update with the new LR4 versions, but still no luck. What have you done to me, Adobe! Don’t get all possessive on me now – I need to see my mistresses!

Several visits to the forums with the frenzied masses, and eventually I hear of someone who has stumbled onto a workaround until Adobe release the real software update that fixes this problem. If you don’t own Photoshop CS5, then download it and install the trial version. You don’t even have to use it, just install it. If you already own CS5, then uninstall it and reinstall it again. And there you have it – I’m back in a happy marriage again.

desktop of the month – september 2011

This month’s desktop calendar is an HDR rendition of Sprague Lake, in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Sizes available: 2560×1440

waiting patiently under harsh lights

While the photographer prepares, the subjects sits patiently, lost in thought, waiting.

who founded this house

An interior of the altar at Ely Catherdral in Cambridgeshire, England. Very diverse lighting conditions so I took three images 2EV apart and HDR’d them in Photomatix, punched up in Nik’s Color Efex and tidied up in Lightroom.