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Carlsbad Flower Fields are in bloom! Apr 16th - Canon Photography Workshop: try out Canon cameras and lenses free with Flower Fields Admission

2023 Superbloom?

This winter has been particularly rainy in California and Western USA. But did it happen too early in the season to create conditions necessary for a ‘superbloom’ event. The are websites watching and logging visits to Anza-Borrego and Death Valley, monitoring bloom events. Here are some of their links:

Anza-Borrego Wild Flowers Status Weblinks:

Death Valley

Masking in Lightroom & Adobe Camera Raw

Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw have features that allow masking of photographic images. Masking is essentially ‘dodging’ and ‘burning’ your digital image, only supercharged. In addition to lightening or darkening areas of your photo, masking allows you to change much more, like saturation and contrast.
One of the best recent features is ‘intersecting masks‘ – the combining of more than one mask to resolve specific elements in a photo, like petals, leaves, or particular color.

Applying A Mask
By applying a mask, the photographer can manipulate specific areas or objects in an image to emphasize and eliminate elements. Both Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw have masking AI (artificial intelligence) that can automatically select specific areas of the photo, like a person, sky, or background. Additionally, you can add or subtract to the mask by selecting specific mask criteria like color or luminescence, or by using a brush or eyedropper to select a detail.

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Tutorial: Adding Bokeh w/ Photoshop 2022-2023

I love bokeh and when shooting with my micro 4/3 Olympus or Panasonic camera, bokeh isn’t as good. Adobe Photoshop 2023 (& 2022) have include ‘neural filters’ – artificial intelligence filters – that can recognize and auto-select (auto-mask) the main subject. The amount of blur is a slider that can really add a nice bokeh effect to soften a background. The latest version is excellent at simulating depth-of-field – making the plane of the subject sharp. This works with any photo you can import & edit in Photoshop so any camera format – micro 4/3, APS-C, Full-Frame, iPhone.

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Apr 20 2022 Theme: Motion

April’s photo assignment for the Photography Interest Group is MOTION.
Since I was not hosting, I did not receive the portfolio other members shared. So this page is meant to be a reminder of the monthly theme.

Note: this website was a new idea proposed & setup by Jim Wilkinson so early content was primarily a mock-up to demonstrate the website’s potential.

Jim Wilkinson