Perception

Still Life, Christiania, Copenhagen

There are several ways to take a viewer through an image, be it a high resolution image from a traditional camera or an image made using an alternative camera such as the iPhone. This morning I applied what I call a light-dark technique to the image posted today. I learned this in several workshops taken over the past few years with Dan Burkholder and John Paul Caponigro. Basically it is using light and painting light and dark areas to create a path for the viewer to see the image, and, to highlight what John Paul calls the 'main actor in the play'. There are several other platforms to make this move but for today I concentrated on the light-dark using the application Filterstorm.

One way is to simply adjust the luminance in Filterstorm and 'apply with mask', meaning you paint in the light and dark areas using a brush with varying opacity and size. Another way is to make separate light and dark images to taste and then use the 'add exposure' dialog in Filterstorm to add the images then selectively paint in light or dark to taste using the brushes and opacity dialog. One can also selectively paint in texture using this same technique. And yes, there are other ways to make this move and whatever works for you is the right answer....

Of course this is not for every image but most definitely worth taking some time to explore what is can do for your images.

Image Management:

photo made using ProHDR handheld
photo transfer
Photostudio for texture
Perfect Photo for sharpening
Filterstrom for local adjustments