08. August 2015 · Comments Off on Good Photo Hygiene · Categories: How to, Locations · Tags: , ,

“Photography suits the temper of this age – of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.”

by Edward Weston.

Yes, I admit that I had fun with the title ! 🙂  Photo hygiene is a catchy title for spotting photos.    It is seldom that there is not some spot on the photo, that while barely visible on the screen stands out like a huge zit on printed photos !  The lead image has been spotted to remove the worst of the spots, plus a minute or 2 of work in Adobe Lightroom (LR) and Adobe Photoshop.  Here is the original image.  Notice the spots over in the upper left. Distracting at best.  There are also spots in the center.  Below are some blow ups, for the spots I have both a blow up and an enhanced blowup to make the spots easier to spot (pun intended).

Pre photo hygiene

Pre photo hygiene

Lightroom has a nice spotting tool, and easy to use. after selecting the spotting tool, the size of the spot can be controlled with the roller on the mouse.  

Spotting tool used for good photo hygiene

Spotting tool used for good photo hygiene

                          After selecting the spotting tool, there is a a check box at the bottom of the window “Visualize spots” checking the box changes the image.  The result looks similar to the image below.  I have added the red arrows to indicate spots.  The check box makes it easier to find and fix spots, i.e. practicing good photo hygiene.  Use the spotting tool on the image in this mode and when unchecking the “Visualize spots” box the spots are gone. 2015-07-31_3-03-26-Visualize spots Here are the blow ups of the spots.

Spots from the left

Left side spots

Center spot blow up before good photo hygiene

Center spot blow up before good photo hygiene

Enhanced spot

Enhanced center  spots

                      This write-up on the spotting tool makes it sound more difficult than it is by far. The whole spotting exercise is less than 30 seconds of work. ‘Try it, you’ll like it, Mikey likes it.’ Here are the settings that I used after taking care of the spots to add a little more contrast and zip in the photo.

Lightroom Settings

Lightroom Settings

  Point Lobos state park just south of Carmel, Ca is a wonderful location, It was a favorite location of Edward Weston, hence the opening quote. On the day of the photos I was lucky enough to have have fog which certainly improved the image. Pt. Lobos is a locale that I continue to visit. Hint: arrive early, because the park fills up and then you have to wait for someone to leave to enter. Here are some other photos from that day. PL20070323-Big-Sur-3444-27 _MG_3429-255-Edit-3

Point Lobos

Point Lobos

Point Lobos

Point Lobos

  House Building

Cyprus Coast

Harbor seal warming itself

Point Lobos

Point Lobos

See more photos at Patrick Lynch Photography