The new TL is now available, I still need to check but the external EVF thats available may also be the model that will fit the new Leica M.
Long Walks with the Hound and Leisurely Baking
Its been a pleasurable start to our week off on the run up to Christmas. We have enjoyed some long walks with Timmy the Greyhound and lots of baking.
We are intending to visit the beach on Christmas Eve on our relaxing run up to Christmas.
For Christmas Day there will be the four of us, my mother, Caroline’s father not counting Oz the Snake, our four hens and Timmy the Greyhound.
Christmas Wrap
We have been planning to get the house re-rendered and painted, it was supposed to be in March 2017, but we got a call asking if they could come before Christmas so we said yes. So at the moment the house looks a little like a Christmas present all wrapped up.
Last day of work
I usually work up to Christmas Eve, but this year we finish today.
The blog is likely to be a little slow on the updates from now on but i’ll catch up by the new year.
Tonight we have the work Christmas party, then its no work till after Christmas.
More Leica M Rumours
More rumours and details of the new Leica M are starting to appear on line. So far nothing official from Leica but the news is a thinner body, a new control wheel on the top right, which some rumours is ISO, other some type of mode or exposure compensation. They are saying only three buttons on the back, it will have live view but no movie mode.
With the Leica SL its likely that the Leica M will more away from the jack of all trades the M240 attempted and failed to be.
Selection Editing and Sunbeams
With some images to finish off and a new version of Photoshop, I thought it was a good time to practice my selection editing and testing some of the improved features.
With the black dress and dark shadows this was a difficult selection. I sometimes wonder if instead of trying to get it right in camera it would be better to produce a flatter less contrasting image and do all of the effect in post production.
Garden Rubbish
It was another weekend of tidying up the garden. Now that Lincolnshire County Council has closed the local tip to save money (wonder how much extra they have to spend on cleaning up fly tipping) its A bit of a fight now to get in and across Lincoln to the other tip.
On the Sunday we rested and had the parents round for the day.
Its been a little warmer recently as well so the Chickens have started to lay again after a short break, hope they do not think its summer or there in for a shock.
So a quiet weekend which was nice after the hectic and busy last few weeks.
Lightroom 2015.8 Reference mode
After installing my Creative Cloud updates on Thursday, today it was time to have a little play.
It was the new reference view that interested me the most.
Trying to edit two photographs to look the same style and lighting can be difficult, even when you sync the develop settings from one image to the next you can often still get differences which are difficult to correct for.
While you can use loupe view for selected images (N shortcut key) or compare two images (C shortcut key) you can just view them, not edit them.
Now in the development mode you can access (if you have the toolbar showing) the reference mode by clicking on icon marked RA. Your selected photo appears on the right and you can drag and drop a photo from the film strip at the bottom to the left hand pane to act as your reference photo. You can then access the developer settings as normal with them only acting on the righthand photo, to make it look like your reference photograph.
Adobe Lightroom Updates – Desktop & Mobile
While catching up on a few music tutorials on YouTube, look what popped up! A new update from Adobe, I updated the laptop and also my mobile devices. Not had chance to see whats new but I’ll try and find some time tomorrow to dig into the updates and see whats improved. The mobile on the phones like a major improvement.
I am not updating my desktop computer yet as I have some work to do and need to know I can rely on the Lightroom that is currently installed.
Sculpting with Light & Order of Editing
This months photo of the month I tried to pull off in camera, but did not quiet get the lighting on the models face right. It was close and I was sure that a bit of photoshop could bring it back.
I did the majority of the editing in Lightroom, then applied some skin softening via negative clarity; then I took it into Photoshop to sculpt the light. This turned out to be a mistake.
Its not a bad image but if you look at the models right arm on the left hand side of the photograph the transition from light to shadow just looks wrong and broken.
I was fairly sure it was because I softened the skin in the wrong order so I needed to process the image again. Lucky I had preserved the layers and it was a lot easier then I expected.
First I took the processed Lightroom image and cloned it, then found the skin softening control point and deleted it, this left all the other Lightroom processing but removed the skin softening. I then opened this into Photoshop and also opened the previous Photoshop image which still had the skin softening and looked broken.
It was fairly easy to duplicate my work, you can Command-Click on the selection layer and copy the selection over to the other document. You can also drag and drop the Curves layer and the masks, thus with just a few clicks I had recreated my Photoshop document but without the skin softening.
Saved then back to Lightroom for a touch of skin softening and a little sharpening plus vignette and you have the picture below and the picture of the month.
