For me the last few years have been spent learning new techniques and enhancing my process workflows. I firmly believe in photography, as in life, that the time we stop learning is the time to give in. I enjoy looking at the work of other photographers, analysing their work and looking at ways to apply those techniques in my work but in a way that I hope is unique rather than a simple copy.
Today’s image was taken on my recent trip to Cornwall. The original file was off course RAW and colour, I opened it in Lightroom and applied a high contrast filter in NIK Silver Effex, but felt it was slightly lacking. I saved and re opened in Photoshop, still could not quite get what I wanted before again dipping into Silver Effex and applying the Fine Art filter with a few tweaks. The final image was brought back into Photoshop, a few minor tweaks made to blur the edges a little and then I decided to stop. It’s easy to keep making tweaks until you have gone to far, I find it much harder to stop before this point but by having an idea in mind before processing I find it is easier to control the urge to tweak.
Related articles
- Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 (shop.oreilly.com)
- Why is workflow so important? (gearslutz.com)
- Art photography: When ‘reality isn’t good enough’ (cnn.com)
- Alien Skin Software Photo Bundle collection for Photoshop (08.2012) + Keygen—PMS (extratorrent.com)
- Photomatix HDR Workflow (chrisdmrf.wordpress.com)
A Brief Moment in Time 
Beautifully done!
Thanks Karen, I wanted to show smooth water but also inject the urgent choppy nature of water crashing over rocks
I really like this, Chris. This is the type of image that I love more each time I look at it. Well done. I also like what you say in the blog about keeping images unique and not tweaking too much. I’m quite guilty of over-tweaking at times. 🙂
I think we can all be guilty of over tweaking at times Jennifer. I noticed a trend lately, where the style of an HDR almost indicates which package was used rather than which photographer took the image, I’m trying to move away from that
a wonderful photography !! incidentally the imaging is excellent
Thank you, appreciated
I think the soft focus vignette was a clever touch here, Chris. It really helps keep the eye on the movement in the heart of the image.
Thanks Mark, I was initially undecided about the soft focus but it grew on me.
Love the drama that b&w brings to this shot, my friend. There are quite a few mysteries held in this image, a real joy to spend time viewing to find them all!
I’d love to say it was planned that way but it was more luck really but thanks for the kind words
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You’ve really captured the sense of movement – like it!