Playing with old and new school photo editing

Above is generative art from midjourney starting with a picture of black sands beach from lost coast to the prompt, “California poppies on beach”.

Just finished an introductory course on photo-editing. The primary content of the course work was gaining familiarity with Adobe Lightroom. But like all good courses we meandered, we spent time thinking through the ethics of photo editing and dove into generative AI as well. Perhaps my eye opening moment, and an untethering moment, was learning about Ansel Adams’ darkroom magic. I had thought that there was one perfect photo (what the eye saw or wanted to see) but what I learned during the class was that the possibilities of photo-editing are endless. Perfection is sought in the moment. It is quite liberating to not have to bear the load of a single perfection. A good photo edit is what feels good today.

Here is one from Ojai, where Lightroom masks (object, sky, color) are used to preserve the colors of t-shirt and hat, reduce haze of the blue sky and blur the grass.

Written by locomotoring

March 3, 2023 at 7:07 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

Locomotoring