Icicles Revisited and Reimagined

Many photographers do not love post-processing (ie editing) their photos. Most do some editing, however, because it is necessary to reveal the scene properly. That said, they try to get it as right as possible in the camera. Well, most of us try to get it right in camera, but some of us also enjoy playing about with photos in post.

Usually, I try to use post-processing to get the photo to look, more or less, as it was when I snapped it. That is sometimes easier said than done because cameras and humans tend to see the world differently. Occasionally, however, I am moved to push the pixels a little more, especially now that AI is available, for it is fun to play with

I have used AI, which Adobe calls Generative Fill, in the following case.

You may recall this photo of icicles from January; there was nothing special done to it, and I like it well enough.

The next few times, we passed by, the icicles were gone, but one day they were back, so I took another photo. It's dead on, so I don't like it as much as the first one, but here it is after some basic editing.

I then sent it from Lightroom to Photoshop to get rid of the yellow thing at the bottom right, and for better or worse, I also chose to crop away the other buildings at the top. I really don't mind them there and would probably leave them in on another day when I would be in a different mood.

I'll show you the end-result now and will, afterward, also reveal the other changes that I made.

I changed to photo to b&w, but I left the window frame coloured. I also enlarged the window just a bit. Finally, I used AI to put a picture inside the frame, for it was just plain cardboard originally. I was thinking that, just perhaps, we might think that the snowy truck might be a reflection. Whether it looks like that or not, I think it is an improvement over the cardboard.

I do think that if I were to take one more shot at editing the image that I would leave it uncropped and in colour but still treat the window as I did in this experiment.

I know that ye non-photographers don't care a jot about my photographic machinations, but thanks for putting up with my occasional forays into the my world.

Addendum: What the heck! I've had this in the queue so long that I've gone ahead and done the other version that I imagined. I did make the window just a little bit larger (again!) in the process and also moved it to be a little more centered horizontally in the black wall.