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October 24, 2012 by Kat

Understanding the Process

If “what do I want to say” is the question I ask myself when I put the camera to my eye, then “how do I want this image to feel” is the question I ask myself when I go to post-process.

In last weekend’s workshop, David talked a lot about making very intentional decisions at the time of capture to convey what we want to say. But we also talked about the role of post-processing and how he uses it. He shared some examples of images he’d edited and said, “Did it look exactly like that when I captured it? No. But this is how it felt to me.” Warm or cool, dreamy or contrasty, all of these are choices we have in our post-processing to further the expression of the image.

Explore with Me

This coastal scene from earlier in the summer is an example, edited early last week to prep for an exhibition submission. Was the light this pink on the evening I captured it? No. But the processing captures the emotion of the moment for me. The connection of mother and child is there in the bicycles and the figures in the background, and the warm feeling of that connection is in the tones.

This conversation comes at a time when I’ve already been thinking about my creative process and the relationship I have with post-processing. On my recent trip to England I realized how incredibly important post-processing had become to me as part of creating images. I didn’t quite know how important until I was without Lightroom, my primary tool for editing. Sure, I could make very, very basic adjustments, but it wasn’t enough. (Not to mention any edits were painfully slow in the netbook I had borrowed.) I felt, literally, like my hands were tied. I could see where I wanted to tweak highlights and shadows, maybe shift the white balance a bit. I could see where I wanted the images to end up. And I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t make the images say what I wanted them to say, feel how I wanted them to feel, without this step of the process.

The RAW files my camera captured have become just that… raw material. Incredibly important raw material — you can’t create a final image you love without the composition and exposure and choices at the time of capture spot on — but raw material nonetheless. Not finished. Not yet conveying what I want them to convey, feeling how I want them to feel. Not yet ready to share with the world.

This was an incredibly important realization for me to make. It’s a dramatic shift from where I used to be; where I thought I was. I’ve been learning photography for 12+ years but I’ve only used Lightroom for 1 year. I had no idea how integral it had become to my process. But because I now better understand my process, I can more intentionally express myself through my images. I can more intentionally tailor what I do to get the end result I want. I don’t have to follow someone else’s process or choices, I can stand up and say, “This is who I am and how I work as an artist.”

How I work right now, at least. It will change. A month from now or a year from now I’ll have some new realization. But right now…

This is who I am and how I work as an artist.

Yeah, that feels good.


How about you? Do you understand your process, and how it helps you create work that expresses yourself? Let’s discuss here in the comments.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: bicycle, coast, creative process, lightroom, Oregon, post-processing, The Vancouver Gathering

August 30, 2012 by Kat

Let Your Dreams Soar

It’s amazing how much a day makes a difference. Even when we try to repeat the same thing, each day and each moment are different. It never comes out the same. As a photographer, I am constantly reminded of this. The camera captures the differences in light and shadow, in my point of view. Our brains adjust and accommodate and affect our perception, but the camera tells it true.

The second morning of the NW Art & Air Festival was completely different than the first. Where there were clear skies, no wind and sunshine on Saturday, Sunday’s launch was in cloudy skies and slight wind. No morning sun on the balloons, no mass launch. One at a time the balloons filled and drifted off quickly into the cloudy sky. It wasn’t as much fun to photograph and yet…

…here is this image. My heart leapt when I first saw it. I knew some dreamy editing would be perfect. I am so happy with it I find that I can’t edit any more photos this morning. I am done. Satisfied. The words “Let Your Dreams Soar” came to me as I edited it, so that’s the title.

Thank goodness I went back the second day. Thank goodness it was different than the first. The morning that seemed imperfect turned out the best image of all. The camera told it true.


Since I love how this image turned out I created a Lightroom preset called Let Your Dreams Soar and I find I can’t wait for the next newsletter to share it with you! You can download it here. This preset will work in Lightroom 3 or 4. I thought you might like to see the original image for comparison. Quite a bit different, huh?

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: Albany, balloon, lightroom, Oregon, preset, sky

June 14, 2012 by Kat

Mail Call!

It’s time for an update on the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap! As of this week, there are 181 people who have signed up, and I’ve received my first two envelopes. Yay! That may seem like I’ve reached my goal, but if last year is any indication, only about 70% of the artists who sign up will actually participate. That means I need a lot more people to join up to increase participation over last year! Can you help? Share about the swap on your blog, twitter or facebook page. I’ve even created a Facebook Event to make it easy to share with your creative friends, click here.

Won’t it be great to have all of that art reaching mailboxes around the world? I can’t wait!

I can imagine some wonderful art coming to these rural mailboxes, can’t you? They were so cheery, with the riot of flowers surrounding them. I played around with the processing and created another Lightroom Preset called “Mail Call,” which you can download here. It’s got a similar feel to Your Art Here, but the result is a little bit warmer with less desaturation in the reds and greens. I like the sunny feel of it!

Today is also the day I’m sharing my painting progress this week for Paint Party Friday. I’ve continued both paintings from last week, but this is the one I’m happiest with at the moment. It has a definite aquatic feel and I’ve continued to maintain the wave shape that originally appeared on the canvas as I build the layers. I think I’ll add some white next and see what happens. Happy Paint Party Friday to all!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: Falls City, flowers, lightroom, mail, mailbox, my painting, Oregon, paint party friday, preset

June 4, 2012 by Kat

Your Art Here

Walking along the street this weekend I came across an interesting antique shop. The empty frames propped up outside the door seemed to be saying, “Your art here.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about art on the wall. Since my exhibition ended, I’ve been moving around frames and hanging prints up in our house. I’ve also recently really dug into learning more about creating fine art prints of my own (more on that later). So it’s no wonder I saw the empty frames and thought about what I would put in them.

What art would you put in these frames? Would it be something you have created? Would it be a recent work, or an older favorite?

PS – I’ve also been playing around with creating presets in Lightroom. I’ve created a preset called “Your Art Here” which I used in the processing of these two images. If you would like to try it, you can click here to download.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: antique, frame, lightroom, preset, Seattle, shop, Washington, window

December 6, 2011 by Kat

Learning Black and White in Lightroom

Another Lightroom progress update today, I continue to be incredibly happy with this software! I’m still editing my photos from our Thanksgiving weekend southern Oregon trip and learning more about Lightroom along the way. Yesterday I did my first black and white conversions, with the help of Scott Kelby’s Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers. I loved the texture of this old building in Jacksonville, and thought it would be cool in black and white. What do you think? Do the little Christmas lights get lost? I kind of like them as a surprise you find when you look closer.

Yesterday I also discovered the power of the search function in the Lightroom Library module. Can I just say – WOW. I now have my 85,000+ images in my Lightroom catalog (I know, it’s insane, tell me about it). While I don’t have them keyworded, I can search on filenames in Lightroom which makes finding a photo from my Inspiration File in the catalog a complete and total snap. Prior to this, the only search function was me looking around, since Windows search didn’t work very well on my computer. I organize my photos by date and have a good chronological memory so me sorting through the directories has, amazingly, worked up to now, but the more photos I take the harder it has become to find them. And when I did finally find them, then I had to load them into the software for editing. A future project is to keyword at least location for all of my files, but now being able to look by filename and move directly into editing is already two steps easier.

I still have so much to learn about Lightroom, but I can tell you thus far – this software is made for photographers. Especially photographers like me who take a LOT of images and need to be able to organize, sort and edit them. I’m figuring out how to adjust my workflow to take advantage of all of the Lightroom features, but overall it is very intuitive. While it’s sold as being for professional photographers who need to manage client shoots, I believe any photographer can get a lot out of this software.

Do I sound like an ad? Sorry. I’m just really excited about Lightroom! The more I use it, the better it gets for me. I’m off to edit more photos…

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: black and white, Jacksonville, lightroom, lights, Oregon, window, wood

November 8, 2011 by Kat

Everything, and a Sink

And the Sink

Have you ever heard the phrase: Everything but the kitchen sink? This photo made me think: Everything and the kitchen sink. (Except it’s a bathroom sink. But it’s a sink so I hope you’ll spot me the flexibility in phrasing.)

I love the randomness of this collection. Another of my favorites from my outing to Philomath on Friday, I had much success finding photoographs along the outside of the Architectural Salvage store. I’ll have to go back and visit when it’s open sometime, I bet there are even more opportunities for random goodness to photograph inside.

All of the photos of this series have been edited using Lightroom 3, I’m now using Lightroom exclusively for my editing to learn the software. I’ve got my Scott Kelby book open on my lap and I’m flipping back and forth as I have questions. I’m learning a ton.

I am in love. Absolute, and total love, with Lightroom. What a fantastic piece of software for editing and organizing photos. It’s intuitive and powerful, and I’ve been in desperate need of the organization piece. I’m getting lost in all of the editing possibilities, and it’s just plain fun. I’m not sure why a photographer would bother with Photoshop! (OK, not totally true, I know I will still use Photoshop Elements for layers, but I’m enamored at the moment so I’m allowing myself to be dramatic.)

Here are a couple of videos I’ve watched that help explain why you would use one or the other, via Kent Weakley and Adorama TV. (The Adorama TV video is the one I watched first, and it helped me decide to go with Lightroom as my next software, but Kent’s is a nice overview and is shorter.) You can substitute “Photoshop Elements” for “Photoshop” in any of these conversations, both integrate with Lightroom the same way, I’ve found. How awesome is that?

Maybe, just maybe, with the combo of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements, I’ve discovered I have everything and the kitchen sink. I’m one happy gal.

Disclosure: Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: flowers, lightroom, locker, Oregon, Philomath, photoshop, pot, texture

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