Last weekend I had the great opportunity to be an “official photographer” for an annual Christmas Parlour Tour of historic homes. While it was crowded and the light was low, making photography difficult, I still had fun finding and capturing some of the details that make these historic homes unique and beautiful.
Yesterday as I was editing the photos in Lightroom I began playing with different types of color conversions. I love how there is so much control of color in Lightroom! In the process, I discovered how to use split toning, where the highlights are set to one tone and the shadows another tone. In this case, the highlights yellow and the shadows blue. Wow! I love this.
It’s amazing how something so simple, editing a photo, can fill me with such wonder and delight. Who needs big presents under the tree? Just let me take photographs, and I’m happy as can be.
Today’s Many Muses Musing prompt is WONDER. Tomorrow’s prompt is HOPE. Come on over and join in!
Love this photograph, Kat! Joy, wonder and beauty combined! 🙂
Beautiful image!! What a wonderful opportunity to photography historic homes at Christmas!
Thanks Cathy! They were beautifully decked out for the event, it was a very special opportunity for sure. You would have loooooved the vintage quilts at them too.
Kat,
Love your split toning experiment – the blue and yellow combination works so well here!
What a fantastic opportunity. That must have been loads of fun!! I love the feel of this photo.
Hey Kat!
I was in Portland a week ago and I was going to try to come your way, but I never did get time. One of these days I’ll make it over to Corvallis when I’m out that way – I’ve been working in Seattle and then staying with my brother in Portland so you never know when I’ll be that way! 🙂
Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and are enjoying your first holiday back in the states!
Thanks for the note Alison! Sorry we couldn’t get together. Let me know when you are next in Portland, maybe I can drive up if the timing works out. I would love to meet you!
is the program, Lightroom difficult to learn? Being a novice, I’ve used Picnik, Photoshop Elements (older version), the photo editing in IPhoto, but I’ve yet to consider other editing programs yet. Perhaps that should be a personal goal in 2012. Sounds like you would give this program a fairly high rating!??
Hi Christine! I think Lightroom is much more intuitive to learn than Photoshop Elements. Having used both now, I would recommend Lightroom as a next step for photographers looking to buy photo editing software. It’s just made for us! I wish I had gotten it earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have thousands of unedited files from Italy still… 🙂
Very pretty
That’s a lovely photo Kat. I have Lightroom and haven’t discovered split toning yet. I must have a play! It works really well for these Christmassy shots.
Hi Angie! Enjoy split toning, I’m in love with it already. Convert the image to black and white first for an effect like this, and then have fun playing with the tones!
Thank you Kat for showing the beauty of our historic homes in Albany – so many homeowners work hard to maintain the craftsmanship of old and they are doing a wonderful job of it. It’s very kind that people open their homes for so many people to view – it’s like stepping back in time! Please come again.
Thanks so much for the opportunity Jeannette! I enjoyed it very much. More photos to come here. 🙂