Graduation!

Photo: © Stan Banos

This is the first photo I've successfully edited in 'adult' PS after reading about one third of the Scott Kelby PS manual (videos only get me so far). I had first edited it in PSE about a year ago and the resulting image was, in a word... awful- not because PSE was so utterly lacking, but because of my pathetic color sense! I'm sure someone with considerably more experience could do the present result even better, but this version is night and day of my previous, trust me- it was so bad I'm embarrassed to post a Before/After. I can usually get color balance in the general neighborhood, but sometimes it's like that part of my brain leaves without notice and I'm left with something completely foreign to both sight and common sense. 

Well, I'm hoping it's satisfactory- particularly since I also had to get a new monitor calibrator, and after several tries and retries to get it right on first attempt, and failing miserably... I just decided to tweak it 'manually' after the fact until my library best mirrored their previous results- at least as I best remember! My previous calibration was in sync with a few prints I had commercially made with no problem, so I can only conclude it was on point or fairly damn close- and that the 'legacy' hopefully carries on... 

Looking forward to studying more of the manual and select videos, especially looking forward to using gradient masks for the sky! And being able to edit more in RAW and as a 16, as opposed to 8 bit TIFF will help relieve the banding I sometimes experienced in skies previous. Of course, this will all take more time than I currently have (why I had originally planned to do in retirement), but getting up for the challenge. One thing's for sure, I ain't gonna mess with no LR until then! I opened it up just to take a look, accidentally clicked on something or other, and next thing I knew it had reorganized one of my folders into it's own distinct filing system which took me a good hour to suss out and (re)reorganize. I gotta separate manual for that too- but one headache atta time!

SHAMELESS!

If you saw any of the Oval Office Debacle, I need not describe just how downright low and despicable Trump and Vance were in that scripted, tag team beat down, attempting to belittle the man trying to save the lives of his countrymen from the likes of the wanton serial killer next door who just happens to be Trump's best bud.

Why does everyone associated with Trump have to be a sycophant, FOX News talking head (excuse the redundancy) or misogynist? Tell me the Tate Bros recent arrival on our shores has nothing to do with POTUS! The Tates are proud, self-described misogynists with a history of sex crimes in several countries- and, of course, rabid Trump supporters......