Album Ready: Early Spring Arboretum
Selecting photos and adjusting exposure are two of the first things I do when forming an album in Lightroom. In this case, I'm remastering an album from the past. Out of 600 photos shot, I originally prepared and shared 90. Now I begin with 224, with a goal of knocking out 24 of those to end up with a 200-page album for Yenra Photography. In this video, I look for photos that are out of focus (especially at the eyes) and photos that were shot so close together that they amount to being duplicates.
I'm remastering to bring in the lighter touch that I have developed over the years. Back in 2012 when the album was shot, I tended to over-process. If I look at develop history, I see too many spot removals and brushstrokes that are unnecessary. I show how they are unnecessary by resetting settings and then doing the fewer things that I do today.
This album was shot in a gorgeous arboretum on the last day of March in 2012, getting close to six years ago. While I'm trying to shoot more in my own town - and there are many beautiful spots to explore here, working on this album has made me want to return to there.
Early spring is a great time for photography, especially in a garden or arboretum where there are so many flowering trees and shrubs. Blossoms fall from trees like snow. I like backgrounds in art. In an Italian Renaissance painting, the trail that goes into the hills, rivers in the distance. That's why I love photography in nature - especially nature with a combination of structure and vista.
Transcript
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OK, I'm going to be remastering an album from the past
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I've done my initial selection; I'm going to deselect based on lack of focus.
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And also looking at exposure on the first round through.
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So that's what I'm going to do the first time I go through.
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Looking for any blur
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Like that. Even though it is a beautiful setting, that Japanese Maple looks so good
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I'm going to take it out
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Because there just was some blur there
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I think we have blur here too, that's a shame
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I really like that picture otherwise
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Blur is unrecoverable.
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Ugh. You know, I'm still going to leave it.
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Just in case
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Just in case it's not too bad
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This is with Erika in the Arboretum in 2012, the last day of March
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I'll be getting rid of duplicates as well
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I'm looking for blur
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That's probably over-processed from the past
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And one of the things I'll be doing is in some cases undoing some things I did before
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I can tell if I go to develop on this
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That I overdid the iris work
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Well . . . Yeah
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I'm going to knock those out and see what I get without doing them
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Now I'm going to go back to what I would do today
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So I'll zoom in
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Yeah, I don't think they're . . . I think the teeth are just perfectly white
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I'll use Iris Enhance now and this time I'm just going to go to 30%
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If I'm going to do anything in there, it's going to be much less than what I've done in the past.
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Maybe some exposure up
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Ah, maybe it's not a big difference there
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If I did do some teeth work . . . and I don't blame the person, I think a lot of times it's because of the color warmth that I have, maybe right there.
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Alright, let me get back into looking for exposure things
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And looking for pictures that may be just complete duplicates
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One of my favorite places, this arboretum, there's so many little settings, especially times like this
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Yeah, even though it's part of the garden, I'm probably going to knock out signs like that
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Where are we picking up from? It's picking up from way down there
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I don't want it to, I want it to get much closer to where I am
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Although now that I did that to that, there's a rock there
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Kind of have to do more
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Nope, that's not a good place to pick it up from
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All that to remove a sign
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There it is again; now I'm kind of stuck with removing it in the same way
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But now I know that I'm going to do the back too
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Once you get into removing things it starts to become like necessary on the next picture because they'll be in the album together
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It's not always good about picking up what you want as the closest background thing
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I think Lightroom generally tries
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I'm going to pick this out
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OK, I thought I had this on a loop but I guess I didn't
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This is Evan Schaeffer's Glow album
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I'm thinking, aww man, I didn't want this one to be blurred
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There's definite blur there though
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So based on my rule about focus I'm going to knock it out
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That one's fine though
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This was a really good day
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It's a shame there wasn't water in this, I think it's a birdbath in the center, that would have been a nice reflection
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Some of these haven't been processed at all
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Yeah, there's definite room for a little movement here
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When it's just a single circle, then you can hold control and position but when it's any other shape you have to let it fall and then you have to move it
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This must be because it was cold this time of year
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There are historical weather sites you can look up what the weather was
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Daffodils
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This makes me want to make sure that next spring I'm back here
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At the beginning of the year you get all these flowering trees of different types
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Gorgeous
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This was my style in 2012 to get pretty close
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This was the crop frame Nikon D300 with a 50mm
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So a lot of my shots were this way
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Now a lot of my shots today are stepped back
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Especially because of cosplay
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Getting the whole costume in
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Then friends have to remind me to get back to some of my old style
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to get some of these nice close-ups too
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Now I'm going to be looking for over-processing that I might have done in the past and I'm going to undo some of that this week
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I like that there are different emotions and expressions
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So I like this, which is very placid . . . serene
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Is it a little too warm back there?
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Then a lot of smiles but
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one thing we didn't do then and I would have directed it if we could redo it today
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I'd redo . . . I've done more look-aways
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See, this is highlights. Highlights, bringing it down, gets detail where it's brightest
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It might be too warm so I'm going to cool it down just a tad
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It's a gorgeous Japanese maple; the way these branches ripple out is so cool
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I think that is again one of those times when I overdid the eyes
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The Iris Enhance; in fact that's crazy if it#8217;s Teeth Whitening, no no no that can't be
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It's some kind of custom which is an exposure and . . . I'm just going to reset it . . . exposure and Iris Enhance
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In fact, let me just take out the filter
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go back in with just Iris Enhance . . . I don't even know if I need to do any Iris Enhance here
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If I do it will be just 20 or 30 percent, 3 on the number, on the keyboard
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Very light
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Eyes are already just perfect; they didn't need anything
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that one
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There's only a very slight shift between this one and that one; between this picture and this picture
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Really duplicate, but which is better?
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Which should go?
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I'm just going to knock this one out
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I like all the different emotions
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The light is strong but it works
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Those are kind of like duplicates
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Maybe too washed out on this one
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Something about the eyes are better on this one here
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So I'm going to leave it, but I think we have to knock down some of the exposure
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I'm actually overall worried about whether this is going to work
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Definitely need to lift the exposure, probably bring the shadows up as well
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Might be too warm
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That one looks a bit dark, so
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Fortunately with RAW you get some flexibility in increasing exposure without losing detail
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Just a great tree
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It takes a long time to grow a tree like that
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Well over a hundred years
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Now there, that's a case of pretty much duplicate
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Yeah
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It's so hard because I like both and I see a little slight difference in each so
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That's hard for me; it's really hard for me to get rid of one I like
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Sometimes it's too washed out to give recovery with the focus [should be "exposure"] change
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In this case we made it though
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Talking about exposure, a little bit too much
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My technique too, I didn't adjust ISO like I do today, I didn't as much
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There we go
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You can't hit your right arrow until you're off of the control
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If you stay on the control, you're right arrow will sometimes just move the control
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And that's not what you want; you want to move to the next picture with your arrow, in this case
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Aww this is a great emotion
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Super confidence, happiness
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Shadow up there
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Yeah this black sign
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This is the one that says don't climb in the trees
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I want to take it out; let's see how I do
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I think Photoshop is probably better for this but I don't like to go into Photoshop if I don't have to
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See those ripples
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It's not the same
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But it's better than that black sign being there
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Such a great tree
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I'm mostly looking for focus problems, duplicates, and overall exposure
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Just a different angle
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I'll probably take the tag out of the tree later
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Arboretum, so almost everything has a label
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There's a big difference in warmth from this one to this one
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We're going to warm it
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Bring up the shadow just a little
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So gorgeous
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Now . . . maybe
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No, it's all, each one to me is different, so
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I said I want to get to 200 ideally but as I work more
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OK now these look like dupes
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I'm going to get rid of that one
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Yeah, my aim is to get rid of 18 more
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Cuz that fits better on my pagination on Yenra Photography
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Two paged albums 100 each
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That's better for me
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Brightness there
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Well I could fix the brightness but I want to make sure it's worth it
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Those are pretty close
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I'm going to knock that one out
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So I hit U to unselect
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Since my View is to see the flagged ones
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I like the amount of brightness
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The light is great. Here's a whole different setting
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This blue's gotta go
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Yeah I think doing just that did it
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Closer
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I like that metal
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It's good to have some that are not smiling after having so many that are
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Ah this is perfect
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Almost duplicates but not really
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Now those two are
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I'm going to get rid of the second
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These are the Italian Gardens; things have changes a little now; it's not exactly the same
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Too much brightness overall; we're going to bring it down and hopefully rescue
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Yeah, because sometimes you can get to where it's no longer rescueable
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We still have variations, here we are too, we need to watch that
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Hopefully I can get that, yup
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It starts to look fake if it's not detailed
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This is right on the edge of too much brightness
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These aren't the final edits but these are the beginning selections
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And I really like all that stuff behind there, all that structure
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Beautiful
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Beautiful
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You can see why I wear cameras down and wear their shutters down, my friends are so beautiful
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That's 216
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I'm just going to shoot . . . these are the very end
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I'm just going to shoot back to the beginning because there was one that was blurry
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I didn't want to get rid of it before
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This is me on that day
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I'm looking for blur
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Especially in the eyes
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This could be it
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Just make sure it fully loads
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Aww man I just have a hard time letting them go
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Is this the one?
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Yeah that's the one to knock out
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I can tell one of these is over-processed; I'm going to have to do some work on that
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Well, 215, that leaves 15 to knock out
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This one, is that over-processed?
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Now to see how much I've done in the past, bring up the History
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I have to get into Develop mode to see history
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One of these is overly processed
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That might be it
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All the brushstrokes and things
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Get back to this one
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Nothing
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But in the end it's not bad
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This is stronger than I normally would have normally done
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I guess this would be a good place to show you what it's like to completely knock out what's been done
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So the first thing is to Reset All Settings
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Now that's so washed out, so
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I'm going to go into my Camera Calibration
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And bring back Camera Vivid
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I'm going to go right to Camera Vivid 4 for that
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So that's normally how I shoot
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That's the first thing
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Secondly after that, Exposure
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And now, there's not a lot; I don't know why I would have done many or any brush strokes
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Maybe this little bit of brightness up here
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On the forehead
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That might be it
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I don't see any need to do anything with the eyes
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Now I'm going to compare with the previous picture
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They do very much look like duplicates
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I'm going to keep the one that had been processed before and take that one out
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We're left with that one
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Now this one, too much work on the eyes, I can tell
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Too much
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It's a little bit fake
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I'm going to do another reset on this one
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And that's where I'll stop
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After this reset's been made
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Go back to the Process that I like
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The Process is there but the Profile that I like
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And just drop the exposure a little
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You know what, maybe I hadn't done many changes there but the light was just really good there so that made the eye look . . .
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I can say it looks slightly too much but it's not because <u>I</u> did a brush to it
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It's the way it was in the sunlight
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Beautiful
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OK that's where I'm going to stop now
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I'm down to 214
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And we . . . I don't know how many more changes to make
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I think there's more but the selection is there anyway
