Lens-Artists Challenge #134 – From Forgettable to Favorite. Bad images made good, or better, at least? a.k.a. Greater Expectations

Photography, Photography 101 Forever
[Categories: Photography, Photography 101 Forever]

Per Tina: “We’ll be asking you to share images that didn’t quite live up to your expectations together with your final versions after editing them.”

As I am a perpetual cheapskate, I do not own or subscribe to any additional photo editing software that has not been included with something else. No Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. I do greatly admire the results attained by photographers MUCH more accomplished than I.

My Apple MacBook Photo Library does include a nice Editing feature set:

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My personal, primary goal in photography is to capture what I see. I like to keep it real, but the camera doesn’t always replicate my vision. I usually have the Vivid setting on in my Program Mode, to increase brightness and saturation of colors. I also tend to increase saturation and it’s nearby settings when editing in software.

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My simplest photo improvement method, of course, is zoom by cropping. Following are some examples:

Not crystal clear, but caught handheld, on-the-fly, so to speak.
I lucked into good bokeh on this shot, then cropped/zoomed.

Some people shoot in RAW file type, then modify in software and convert to JPG. I very rarely shoot RAW, but I did of the following roses. The RAW shot came out a brighter red than the JPG, which I really liked. (I liked the bright red RAW, that is.) Though it is possible to shoot both a RAW and JPG shot at the same time, I think these are a conversion, but I’m not sure. Regardless, you get the idea. The RAW:

The JPG:

Yep, those are roses!

I will leave you with one other way to modify a photo.

MONOCHROME!

Several Lens-Artists posters use a lot of monochrome. I’m JEALOUS! They do it well.

Great theme, Tina.

Stay safe, be well, be kind to one another.

Published by JohnRH

Retired, former winter skier, avid reader, traveler (avidly). :)

Published

66 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Challenge #134 – From Forgettable to Favorite. Bad images made good, or better, at least? a.k.a. Greater Expectations”

      4. You are correct. Your previous comment, and one other of yours, was in spam. In the process of checking I sent one of Tina’s comments to Trash. Those options are too close together. I’m very satisfied with my Panasonic ZS-200 Lumix with Leica lens. It is very portable and LOADED with features. If you are willing to apply yourself, I’m sure you can get a lot out of it. Despite phone cameras, we are spoiled for choice amongst fine digital cameras. It’s a nightmare to decide. Good luck!

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      5. oh good to know and glad I asked.. you are usually quick so I thought so.
        Key word apply.. i just like to click. maybe you can send a post on lessons or a class on zoom? I’d come! Thanks John!!! 💖🙏

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      6. I’m mostly just a clicker also, and mostly use basic settings, letting the camera do the work. Extra features are something one can work into via the manual, over a long period of time. (A LONG time, in my case.) Enjoy.

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  5. Terrific examples John – I used photos for quite a while and it’s come a long way baby (as they say). Loved the slider effect. Do you know if a non-WP user follows in email, what happens to the slider? Especially liked your little bokeh’d flower.

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    1. Thank you Tina. I don’t know about non-WP user, but I’d think a ‘visible’ post should show all. I’ll see if I can boot an old non-user iPad and check.

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    2. I viewed my post as a non-user, non-signed in, on a very old iPad2, and the sliders worked fine. I forgot how appalling the blog looks with ads interspersed, since I’m too cheap to upgrade WP. Yuk.

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  10. i LOVE at his post because you shared your APPLE snippets
    and omg – do i Love all
    things apple and thank their products in 2004 and later for being user friendly and all
    those included goodies!!! love apple so much (except iTunes – whoever messed that up all those years ago should have been fired – someone went in and made it all difficult and even my kids were like WTF when it happened all this years ago – they ruined a good thing when they made major changes)
    and getting back to your changes –
    or edits
    i liked the nature theme –
    felt
    outdoors with you and with valentine’s day coming up- your red roses was perfect John

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      1. oh right on
        and is your computer in the same room where you spend “way to much time” watching TV sometimes?? haha – i remember that comment from you a few months back – and it makes me smile – so many of us have “that room” to watch out for the black hole

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  15. Great examples of before and after, John. Like you, I usually rely on the software that came with the camera or very basic software that I purchased years ago and that thankfully still works with the computer that I use now. I like the switch from color to b/w on the tree and the crop on the hawk image.

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  21. Well done, good examples John! Love them all, and the B&W works so well. The roses! I always get comments for not shooting in RAW – even if I know the difference is striking. But the RAW are so terribly Big…Maybe some day…
    Will you shoot only in RAW?

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