Friday Photo — RAW deals

Last week, I said I would delve some into my experience with RAW images.  If you have looked into reasons why shooting RAW is the way to go (in many cases, though not all*) if you want to achieve professional results with your photography.

instamatic x-35 (Photo credit: alexis mire)

English: Canon PowerShot G5 camera (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now I’d the first to say that I’m not a professional photographer.  I’m using an older digital camera that is just a few steps away from one of those old Instamatic Polaroids and not even as convenient to use as newer ones because I still need to find someone to print my photos.

Left image ≠ right image, but they’re more similar than you might suspect.

But I do have some advantages too.  With my G5, I have a full manual mode, allowing me to set my f-stops, ISO and shutter speeds.  While I still usually use the automatic white balance, I have toyed with it in the manual mode, and I’m enjoying the flexibility of manual focus and being able to add specialized filters and macro lenses to my camera for different effects.

MY G5–taken w/ hubby’s iPhone (with which I take really crappy pictures)

However, I’m starting to think that the best feature of my camera is the ability to shoot RAW images as well as jpeg files.  If you’ve ever worked with film negatives before, you know how powerful a tool they are.   I actually never used them myself, but I’ve seen the different ways a single negative can become a multitude of different images.

You can do this sort of processing with a RAW image a lot more precisely than you can a jpeg (although there are a lot of programs out there to help you with your jpegs too).

As close to the original as I can upload

Now a RAW image pretty much is “meh” if you use a viewer (like Picassa) to see it.  Booooring! Colors are washed out–the amazing reflected sunset we saw that night was just…well gone.

So I used RAWtherapee to tweak the white balance and saturation (as well as applied some noise reduction) as per this page (A Simple Workflow for RAW Processing) to get this:

MUCH closer to the tree we saw

It still needs work.  A lot of work actually…  But it’s a start.

I’m still learning all of this stuff–in fact today was my first “close to successful” attempt to use RAWTherapee for processing my RAW images.  I was taking them all this time, without being able to really use them, because I knew someday I would.

I need to decide if I want to pay for a Photoshop subscription for further editing, so I just applied a few finishing touches in Picassa to the second image for this final result.  I like it.  I think it’s a pretty cool tree too.

Lovely Tree

Don’t you?

* There is a movement (in part because of the direction camera manufacturers are taking in their technology) that advocates using the built-in camera jpeg format as opposed to the more work-heavy RAW processing.  My own camera does OK with jpegs, but its 5MP limitation and the blue-haze it edges things with often make RAW mode work a necessity.  Look at both sides of the RAW/jpeg debate and choose for yourself–it’s still worth considering despite changes in the technology.  What’s the worst that could happen?  You learn something new to try later. 

Some directions

 

I know from reading other people’s blogs that a vague title or cutesy catch phrase is often looked down upon by other bloggers.  In fact, Aaron posted something to that effect specifically in his 10 Reasons I Won’t Comment On Your Blog.

 

Thing is, unless I want to say something like  Stuff I have done and stuff I want to do, but can’t because there is stuff I still need to do first”, all titles seem to be either too little or too much.  Nothing that came to mind really seem to fit, so I went a bit vague and tried for accuracy as best I could.

 

So why Some Directions?

 

Well, to go back several weeks in my last post, I’d started to write about some of the soul-searching I’ve done.  The blogging stopped; the searching did not.  If anything, the end of posts correlated to the depth of searching involved.

 

You see, I don’t like blogging about myself.

 

I’d originally made this blog with its name “Many Worlds From Many Minds” with the thought that possibly I would make it place where a writing group could work from.  Then I realized how many such sites were already out there: StoryDam, SheWrites, etc. and I surrendered to the fact I’d made this place–I may as well write here.  (Actually I’d started on Blogspot, but moved MWFMM here due to a (now fixed) issue with my Google account.)

 

It was about six or so months later when I read (I believe it was via Kristen Lamb) that a good writer’s blog should use the author’s name, not a catch phrase.  There was no problem with using a title on that level, but the actual URL should be the author’s name and nothing else.  Branding the name…

 

Problem was, I’ve never felt a connection to my name.  I haven’t made a brand identification with either the name I was given by my parents or the one I took when I got married.  In either case I’ve never felt much like an “Eden”.

 

That didn’t stop me from trying.  I set up the Garden of Delights with grand plans.  It was going to be my space to be me.

 

The only posts I’ve placed there in almost a year are just things I’ve reblogged from other people’s pages.  :-/

 

What does this all mean?

 

It means I’ve come round full circle in some senses.   I’m done trying to be someone I’m not just because it might or might not suit the eventuality of a writing career.

 

What else it means is this place is still a work in progress.  This is still a work in progress.  It may become more in the way I’d once hoped it would be.  It may stay as it is, an outlet for my ROW80 musings (particularly since I’ve once again signed up as a sponsor for ROWnd 2).  It may even become something else entirely as I explore myself further.

 

 

What is going to happen, at least in the short-term, is that I’m going to try creating an actual schedule of what I will be posting and when.  I need to consider it further in-depth, but for the moment I can commit to my ROW80 check in for Sunday and Wednesday.

 

Add in a Friday Photo to give me time to talk your ears off share my growing passion of photography and that will make three posts a week.  I’d like to set a day for some story snippets too, but Tuesdays won’t work now.  Suggestions anyone?

 

ROW80 mini-check-in:

 

I’ve written a lot (800 or so words a day), but very little involved stories.  All this soul-searching has turned into page upon page of rants, freewriting and textual offal that  might eventually compost into something for building characters later on.  Right now, it’s just been catharsis.

 

Things have equally stalled on Release.  Reading and re-reading and re-reading even more…  I realize that the story has started in the absolutely wrong place, that the first few chapters have far too much worldbuilding baggage built into them, and that the world in that manuscript completely messes up the story line for Swan Song.

 

Sp there you go, posts on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday…  direction from the directionless.  How did you all find your way in this virtual jungle?

 

Photo credits:

 

• Worcester & Birmingham Canal – University of Birmingham – sign – New Road Layout Ahead (Photo credit: ell brown)
• Under Construction (Photo credit: jasoneppink)

 

Reallife interventions…

It recently occurred to me that I have a real life.

Well, okay…  the discover didn’t have recently; I just didn’t really pay much attention when Life’s Clue-By-Fours would give me a womp on the side of the skull (usually virtually) in hopes that I would start to pay better attention.  And, as always happens in disciplinary situations, I would scramble to deal with any paperwork, affairs, events, etc. that awaited me so that I might quickly escape back to my books, art and stories.

It’s only recently that I’ve discovered how to merge my lives (online, offline and story-based) into something cohesive.   Some of it has come from not having to make so many of these changes in mode on the schedules of others as much as I used to.  It’s incredibly difficult for people on the Autism Spectrum (even those with milder versions of Asperger’s) to move from one frame of thought to another, something I understood intuitively for years but never understood why.

Over the years I used something akin to multitasking where I would only half focus on any one thing at a time so that I could “deal” with those things that jumped in at inconvenient time.  The problem with this technique is of course that everything jumps in at an inconvenient time and that I never got the chance to truly become engrossed in anything that appealed to me.  Oh…  and almost nothing ever got finished.

In comes being a mom and trying to finish up some of the hundreds of half-finished projects that I’ve started over the years*…  I learned early on that I could not be half-focused on my son.  I also could not, for my sanity, be completely separated from my writing.  Everyone needs an outlet for their creative passions, and I tried to force all of my passion into writing at carefully allotted times such as when the Boodle would be napping or later when he was in school.  And that was…

Now, thanks to my amazing husband, who works from home most of the time, and homeschooling (no more 2 hours of commute each day or administration-based “extras” to deal with), changing mental modes has become easier, not just for me, but for all of us.   We allow ourselves time to flow from task to task more than before.  We permit ourselves the occasional absences, even when in the same room.  And we have spaces to work on things where we’re able to shift gear more smoothly…  memo board, post-it notes, email reminders.

What does this have to do with a ROW80 check-in or anything else?  Not much really–I just realized this after I’d come into a bit of a goal slump that this week also had been one filled with a lot of external changes of focus.  Yes, many of these changes are things I need to deal with or are things I initiated (such as acquiring beta readers for Release), but they are changes nonetheless, and I haven’t fully internalized the processes I need to deal with them.

So I’m behind for this check-in.  There , I said it.  I am behind.  I did not get more than a few hundred words done on my 1,500 a week goal.  I did not visit as many blogs as I wanted (though I did at least reach my minimum).  Exercise and reading were both minimal but there.

I did spend a fair amount of time comparing versions of files from one computer to another and editing photos.

No complaints here–the week was what it was, and it held a nice mix of ups and downs.  It just wasn’t a good week for me to get things done.  I’m okay with that.  I’m also beginning to understand why things happen this way.

So now, let’s go visit some other ROWers, many of whom I’m sure have great news, some of whom are in the same fix as me and others who need some boosting up after real set-backs.

*These projects I do not wish to let slide, because I enjoy them.  I just never seem to have the time to delve into them the way my brain demands.  Some I’ve discussed here such as my drawing and my various stories.  I also have a blanket I’m crocheting, I used to do beadwork and make jewelry, and I’d love to learn painting, sewing and how to cook better.