f/11, 1/25, ISO 100, 16mm, circ. polariser
There is a heavy hint of change in the air. The trees no longer bask in full Autumn glory. Instead, their leaves billow under the wheels of passing vehicles. Twice this week my day has begun with scraping frost from car windows. Staying out to photograph the sunset, my hands and feet became numb from the cold.
f/11, 1/15, ISO100, 16mm, circ. polariser
Perhaps in sympathy, it’s been all change in my digital life this week. I have finally downloaded Photoshop Creative Cloud and Lightroom 5. For photographers there’s a special subscription deal for just under £9 a month. That’s a huge discount, but hurry, it ends on 2nd December. It will take me a while to get to grips with Lightroom as I haven’t used it before but PS CC seems fairly intuitive, not too much of a leap from CS4.
One of the things that’s much improved from CS4 is the HDR facility. The image below is my first attempt. Just three exposures blended by PS CC. It’s certainly light years ahead of what CS4 would have produced but I’m still not sure about it. I had to tweak a lot to get it to look even vaguely natural. Perhaps it’s a good thing I have ordered some ND graduated filters so I can do it in camera instead!
f/16, 1/6, ISO 100, 16mm, circ. polariser
Just to make life even harder, I also upgraded my iMac operating system from Snow Leopard to Mavericks. It seems mostly familiar but for some inexplicable reason I now have to scroll in the opposite direction. Mighty confusing! There’s probably a setting I need to tick somewhere. (Scratches head bemusedly.)
And, just to add to it all, I have finally given up on Redbubble and am working on creating a new website with Photium. More on that soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these further images from my walk last week along the Wey Navigation towpath.
Focused Moments 
Aha! I’m ahead of you on Lightroom5. Never could get the hang of Elements. Don’t intend to go to the Cloud for Photoshop. Can’t abide the thought of a subscription rather than ownership. Lightroom and NIK plugins do it all for my needs or wants. Far easier to adjust to. NIK has some really fine tutorials if you want a glimpse of what it can do.
Hadn’t heard of Mavericks, but looking at the “what’s new” page I can’t say I was impressed enough to upgrade until I find some reason to do so. I’m really resisting this push to the Cloud.
Just a note . . . for those with CS3 or later, the low subscription rate is good until the end of December.
Right now I’m subscribing to the full Adobe suite, and it gave me the opportunity to check out some of their other stuff, but I’ll probably go back down to the Photoshop and Lightroom combo. We’ll see.
Oh . . . nice photos.
That’s an awful lot of change all at once! Good luck mastering everything.
You’re a brave woman making multiple changes. I’m perplexed enough with one at a time.
He he – for once the changes haven’t been too overwhelming. Nothing nearly as bad as when in one week in early 2010 I switched my desktop from windows to Mac, got Photoshop for the first time and a brand new camera, all while completing a client commission! Why do I do it to myself? 😉
The autumnal feeling has definitely left. For me it’s when I have to have the heating on several times a day! lol.
Wonderful autumnal photos – it’s one of my favourite times of year to take photos, with the bright days, and all the colours on the trees. Such a beautiful time of year.
A big fan of Lightroom. I’m using 4 at the moment, and it’s just a godsend for helping me keep things sorted and catalogued.
Was Redbubble just not working out at all? Shame. It looks like such a promising place to sell prints.
Oh leaves. You have leaves. Lovely shots and experiments! Happy last days of autumn. We are on to first days of winter, but—at the least—it gets you in a holiday frame of mind.
Wonderful series of shots…refreshing just to look at these scenes…the sun peering through on a perfect day.
Thank you. The sun is so much more co-operative at this time of year. 🙂