A wider than life view takes in all of Chautauqua and the Flatirons on the west edge of Boulder, Colorado

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I learned a lot from magazine how tos. Typically, these articles take one small facet of photography or a program like Photoshop and concentrate on one aspect. The instructions seem straight forward and easy to follow. Yet, the results aren’t always perfect or even near where you might imagine.

What’s missing? Context is missing. For instance, An article on how t use to two elements i Photoshop layering some time ago lead me to believe that a simple click could fix an under or over exposed images. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Screen works to correct under exposure, Add a layer to the background and select Screen from the drop down box and the image is instantly lighter. Take an image that is over exposed and elect multiply and, suddenly, there’s a transformation from a light, uninteresting image to one that is darker and more saturated.

The perfect image? Maybe, maybe not. What it takes is practice and experimentation. For instance, the article neglected selecting a portion of the image, feathering it (another skill that takes practice) so the effect applies gradually. This can result on a light or dark part of the image blendingin to the entire photo in a more pleasing way.

The tips are terrific and with practice, you can perform miracles. You can even use such techniques to simulate Neutral Density filters after the exposure. Now, that’s a neat trick. Unfortunately the results are sometimes horrendous.

Thank god for undo.

What magazine miss out on is the practice, patience and persistence it takes to produce a good image no matter how wonderful the new trick is. Tricks and Tips – the real trip is dedication until the final images jumps out at you and says a loud “YES!”

Have fun and get up and strectch every 20 minutes.

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In order to use ther tools – clear mind and heart allow me to use these tools to see more than I see. All the technology and skill in the world will not take me to a place of expending the enormous energy to go out and find a treasure that and do the neccessary work that results the final photograph.

A few things I try to do each day on my journey to this place:

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Do something every day that you don΄t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you΄re busy interrupting.

I’d rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.
Steve Mcqueen

OMG – how do I get all of this in the camera?
Greg Summers

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A line of cottonwoods stands guard through the frigid cold of the Colorado plains with the Front Range and Long’s peak in the Background

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Why spend double for a monitor setup for photography? Because most monitors display only sRGB for one and they are way too bright even at their lowest levels.

If you are going spend lots of money to edit photography, get a monitor that makes it possible.

The Dell U2410 is reasonably priced. Has an RGB option (also sRGB) and can really be calibrated. It is 1/2 the price of other monitors with similar features.

I recently did this and the difference is astounding. I have a terrific laptop but there’s only so much you can do if you can’t see what the image is going to look like on-screen AND on paper.

What I was seeing resembled what I had on paper but trying to match it was impossible.

I use an Epson 3880 which makes wonderful prints and now, I can get very close on-screen to what they are going to look like on paper.

Hopefully, this will also help with my stock photos since the inspectors use accurately calibrated screens. photographed images and adjusting the color balance out of balance because of what I saw on-screen. Using numbers and the histograms helped but photography is a visual art.

Sliding in the snow beneath The Flatirons on the west edge of Boulder, Colorado

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