Wild  Willow   Ways 

Trees are an essential part of our human existence. It is true that trees can live without humans, but humans can’t live without trees. In his book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, author Peter Wohlleben ’draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers.’ https://www.bookdepository.com/author/Peter-Wohlleben. Although these are lofty claims, they could well be true, and whether they are or not, I love trees and I think t

Colour Grading adds a little creativity to our black and white images One of the great advantages of post processing is that it allows us to really get creative with our images. I have often found that I like the composition of an image yet I didn’t get the exposure right, or I got the right exposure but the subject wasn’t very interesting. These are the times that I have tried to become creative with my images rather than discard them, and colour grading is an easy way to do that. What is split toning/colour grading? I came across Split Toning (now upgraded to Colour Grading) as part of a lesson on black and white conversion. In the lesson, instead of simply leaving our image as monochrome

In October 2020 Adobe officially released Lightroom Classic 10.0, a Lightroom Classic upgrade which removed the familiar Split Toning panel and replaced it with a new panel called Colour Grading. Instead of the familiar sliders which allowed you to add tones to the highlight and shadow areas of your images, you now have colour wheels which allow you to color the tone of shadows, highlights and, additionally, midtones, independently. The Colour Grading tool also has controls for blending and balance. Take your images to new creative heights by adjusting the color wheels in any combination to create subtle, vivid, complementary, or contrasting looks (Adobe Feature Summary) For a comprehensive

How do we create the best possible black and white version of our image? In part 1 of this article I looked at some of the considerations involved in deciding which photographs would look better in black and white than colour. Variables such as the amount of contrast between the darks and lights, the variety of grey tones, whether it has strong shapes and textures and whether black and white or colour suits the composition best are all things to consider. Although the foreground is out of focus, I think there is enough strong contrast to make this image look good in black and white Once we have chosen an image that we think would look better in black and white, the next consideration is to a