I was going to continue yesterday's blog with the thoughts I am about to relate, but I decided to give them their own space since it is a change in the entire subject.
Digital photographs right out of the can are mostly blah. I don't care how you choose to set your camera, they are not going to look all that good. No one who takes photography seriously is going to be happy with the images just the way they look right out of the camera.
Photographers are a cagey bunch. Read photography magazines and they will admit to making "minor adjustments" in tone or contrast, etc. "But otherwise," they insist, "The image is just like I saw it out there in the wild." Yeah, right.
Who starts a race and doesn't finish it? Who goes half-way and says, "That is far enough?" No one I know of! It doesn't make sense. That is essentially what these guys are saying, though. I could have done more, but I wanted to keep it "real."
You want to know the truth? I process the heck out the pictures I take until I am completely happy with the results. The subject matter may not be that great, but I keep processing until I get the result I am looking for.
I have been using a program for a couple of years that beats Photoshop by a mile and with a lot less effort. (If you are curious about what the program is called, email me.) Sometimes I end up with so many pleasing versions, I have a hard time deciding which one to choose.
Both of today's photos are the same except for one detail: in the first the color saturation was enhanced quite a bit while in the second it was diminished almost as much. The difference affects the birds almost not at all, but it does affect the background. Since there is so much white in the picture, the second creates a monochrome appearance and changes the mood of the image.
If you click back and forth on the thumbnail pictures, you'll get a better idea of the differences between the two photographs.
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