I’ll start by saying sorry for not publishing in April. There was simply too much happening in my life, and something had to give. Interestingly, now that I’ve caught up a little, I realise that I haven’t been out with a camera since mid-March. More worrying is that I haven’t really missed it.
I think my problem is that I don’t have anything to motivate me. That got me thinking, and I realised that I probably need to find myself a photographic project. I don’t yet have any ideas, but I’m sure that it will help me be more motivated, especially if it’s something other than landscapes.
With that out of the way, I should also say that I haven’t been photographically lazy through April and have spent some time processing old images. I find that processing old RAW files with today’s software is extremely rewarding. What you once thought was impossible now becomes possible like this shot.
This image of the boulders at Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland was taken back in 2008. My camera at the time was a Canon 400D and it struggled to cope with the high dynamic range of the scene, even though I was using ND Grad filters on the sky. Here’s the original RAW file to give you an idea.
What made it possible for me to save the image was DxO PhotoLab and its DeepPRIME Noise reduction. But that wasn’t my only problem because the image was soft. This was partly due to my using too small an aperture to slow the exposure, but also the poor quality of the lens I was using. Fortunately, I’m now able to fix these problems using Topaz Sharpen AI.
Then there is the size of the image. The Canon 400D was only 10Mpixels and the native image size is 3,888 x 2,592. That’s about enough to create an A4 print at 300ppi. Now using the likes of Topaz Gigapixel I can now create huge prints from this and similarly small images.
We are indeed fortunate to have such wonderful tools at our disposal.
I hope you like the image, forgive me for not posting in April, and have yourself a good weekend.
The Lightweight Photographer 
I think that it is important to have some sort of personal project to keep you in touch with your photography skills and keep you in the habit of using your camera. I struggle with this as well.
I do think it’s a common problem. I’m hoping inspiration will strike me soon and I’ll have a project.
I a.so need one! Nice photo your featured image!
It’s a common problem I think. I’m glad you like the photo. I seem to have hit my peak 15 years ago and never realised it.
Funny that if I took a picture like your original I would probably have hit the delete bottom.
So would I. This was in one of many folders that have yet to be sorted. I started to process it because I wanted to see what was possible.
Great example of what can be achieved in post! I still edit with pre-subscription Photoshop CS6. Recently updated my 14 year old first gen i7 so I can now run/try Topaz but have yet to download a trial. Great blog, greetings from a new follower from Tasmania 🙂
It is surprising what you can do in post-processing but you do need to keep the software and equipment relatively up to date. I hope you enjoy your new computer and software.
My 2008 PC which has only had more RAM and a graphics card upgrade is still capable of editing 4K video. It is only in the last year that some newer software wont load, it has served me extremely well. I was lucky to get 2 years out of my PC’s before I built that one, I hope this new one has a similar life span 🙂
Yes, when you build something well from quality components it will last. I still have a 12-year-old computer that I use almost daily. I can’t upgrade the software but it works perfectly. I paid a lot of money for it at the time but it was worth every penny. Also, let’s not forget the time and effort to move between computers. I hope you get a good useful life from your latest computer.
Thanks, the new PC might be faster – but I’m not 😉 I won’t bash Windows 11, but if that’s your only reason for upgrading hardware … don’t 😀
Don;t worry, I’m almost exclusively Mac these days.
I used to be a big Mac fan back in the G3 days, then Apple bought out a new one with a new OS that wouldn’t work on mine. I swore I’d never buy another. Having said that, Windows 11 has just done the same thing and essentially made a lot of recent hardware redundant. Maybe I should give Linux a crack 😀
Good luck with that one. I still have the scars from Red Hat in the 90’s.
Lol, I’ve tried to test the water a few times over the years and though tempted never taken the plunge. The last recent attempt was booting from a USB stick but I couldn’t get 3 versions to work so gave up.
I’ve seen what seals do to penguins 🐧 🦭