A Photo Process

As you know, Sue follows a photo prompt daily. I do not. I am not clever enough to come up with ideas, so I just follow my own photography nose and click if something catches my interest.

But our local FB group does put out challenges, and I, occasionally, very occasionally, feel a pricking, not in my thumbs but in my conscience, so I partake in some small way.

The current challenge: red and round.

When we passed a store window with red Christmas balls, it was too easy to pass up. I knew that it wouldn't be a commendable photo by any means, but it should show my cooperative spirit. I also wondered what I could do in post.

Here's the original: cropped and straightened a bit because I can't take a level photo to save my life, but that is all. It is banal, as I knew that it would be. Of course, there would be reflections —the passing car and building from across the street, but that is partly why I wanted to take the photo.

I wanted to see how well Lightroom's new reflection removal algorithm would work. The next photo shows the reflections all gone. All you can see, beyond the window display, is the interior. I simply clicked Remove Reflections, and it did just that.

Of course, I didn't want to see the interior either, so I then sent the photo from Lightroom to Photoshop, and I asked Photoshop to remove the background. I thought it would just erase the interior background and that I would need to replace it with something Christmassy, in a subsequent step. Surprisingly, however, the program did that on its own, somehow knowing that a woodsy winter scene would be just dandy. I suppose that I could have asked for a different background, this this one was good enough.

I thought that I was done and so I posted all three ↑ photos, to the group. Later, however, I decided to play a bit more, so I sent the photo along to ON1 Effects where I applied some filters and added a border.

I am not fooled. I didn't start with a great photo, and it is far from great at the end of my process, but it kept me busy for a while, and it's not absolutely terrible.