Mini Edited Photo

eckydrone200 · Mar 1, 2021

Just thought I'd upload this to see if anyone else has experimented with such dramatic transformations which I think makes this shot look really artificial. This is done in Photoshop Elements which I have just purchased to go with the new laptop after coming back to Windows from Apple.

tck444 · Mar 1, 2021

I use a similar feature in Luminar. As you suggest sometimes will not look realistic.

eckydrone200 · Mar 1, 2021

tck444 said:
I use a similar feature in Luminar. As you suggest sometimes will not look realistic.

How would you rate Luminar as opposed to Photoshop Elements? Not sure if there is a thread on this but it would be interesting to see what others think of the various editing software packages and show some examples of any work they have done.

tck444 · Mar 1, 2021

I refuse to pay another dollar to Adobe. At one point I had a $10 a month subscription and when I canceled, they charged me a $20 cancellation fee??

Luminar is a one-time charge of about $70. I don't really like the software as I find it slow and counter-intuitive and also had to upgrade my computer to 32 GB RAM for it to run properly. Mostly I use it as a last resort because it seems we may 300 days a year here in the Las Vegas area with cloudless skies. One good thing I will say about Luminar is that I was able to add my own sky images otherwise you are stuck with the few they give you. I actually made a video about Luminar and will post it below.

The "purists" mostly frown on any of these editing tools. Just seems they may be the same people with $10,000 worth of camera equipment? Also, just the simple act of taking a photo is some type of digital manipulation of reality. Just depends on where you draw the line?

Actually, my favorite editing photo editing software is "PhotoScape" from the Microsoft Store which is FREE. Rather simple and intuitive and may do 90% of what most users need. They offer a paid version (about $40) which allows HDR merge and focus stacking.

Also,

a sample of a Luminar heavily editing photo with the augmented sky and something called "Orton Effect". I guess at this point it stops being photography?

NDWildBill · Mar 2, 2021

I have been doing landscape photography for many years, and currently use lightroom and photoshop for post processing. Just getting started in drone photography. I always shoot in raw so post processing is necessary. There are those "purists" wo say that photos don't need post processing, or that they should not be edited. Ansel Adams, one of my most admired photographers, had a great eye for taking photos, but his real skill and creativity was in the darkroom. Edit to your hearts content, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion, Eckydrone's photo does look artificial...a dramatic sky with no reflection in the water. And the heavily edited with Luminar photo...well, what can I say. When I first started editing with lightroom, I was very heavy handed, and frequently over edited making many of my photos look really artificial. After enough negative critiques, the message finally sank in that sometimes less is more. Keep shooting and editing, experiment to find a style you like and go for it.

Tiger64 · Mar 2, 2021

NDWildBill said:
I have been doing landscape photography for many years, and currently use lightroom and photoshop for post processing. Just getting started in drone photography. I always shoot in raw so post processing is necessary. There are those "purists" wo say that photos don't need post processing, or that they should not be edited. Ansel Adams, one of my most admired photographers, had a great eye for taking photos, but his real skill and creativity was in the darkroom. Edit to your hearts content, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion, Eckydrone's photo does look artificial...a dramatic sky with no reflection in the water. And the heavily edited with Luminar photo...well, what can I say. When I first started editing with lightroom, I was very heavy handed, and frequently over edited making many of my photos look really artificial. After enough negative critiques, the message finally sank in that sometimes less is more. Keep shooting and editing, experiment to find a style you like and go for it.

I spent many hours, in my younger days, in a darkroom with additive and subtractive filters, masks, pencils etc getting the photos to look like i wanted.
Never have been sure where the line is between photography and art. ??

eckydrone200 · Mar 2, 2021

Thanks for the replies guys.

eckydrone200 · Mar 2, 2021

NDWildBill said:
I have been doing landscape photography for many years, and currently use lightroom and photoshop for post processing. Just getting started in drone photography. I always shoot in raw so post processing is necessary. There are those "purists" wo say that photos don't need post processing, or that they should not be edited. Ansel Adams, one of my most admired photographers, had a great eye for taking photos, but his real skill and creativity was in the darkroom. Edit to your hearts content, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion, Eckydrone's photo does look artificial...a dramatic sky with no reflection in the water. And the heavily edited with Luminar photo...well, what can I say. When I first started editing with lightroom, I was very heavy handed, and frequently over edited making many of my photos look really artificial. After enough negative critiques, the message finally sank in that sometimes less is more. Keep shooting and editing, experiment to find a style you like and go for it.

Thanks for that info WildBill and your honest opinion. I like the fact that you picked up on lack of reflection in the water as I never even considered that and that will teach me to look for stuff like that now as I would probably never really give it a thought. As I say I was just playing around with the software as I thought I better get some use of my £130 ? I fully agree with you that sometimes less is more as the more heavy handed with the software the more artificial looking it may become.