Whaddup Wit Da Green?

[Jimbaux wants to pass da green.]

Rooster P, No Limit

(What, you’re not listening to the above-linked song????)  In my recent article on the ‘proper’ way to do the Bayou Sale shot, my pal BobE made the comment that I had overused the “saturation slider” to make my shots too green, specifically referring to the gray-day shot of the Union Pacific’s MNOEWB led by the UP 9120.  Here it is again:

Truth be told, I did the raw conversion of the above shot back in the summer of 2007 not long after I took the picture.

I’m A No Limit Slider

BobE was right in suggesting that I used the saturation slider, a tool I rarely use anymore.  However, that was only part of the problem.  The other problem is that I often put the color temperature too high on the pictures before doing a raw conversion.

All I Want To Do Is Smoke Weed, Foam, and Paint Paintings

Momma always told me, but Daddy never . . . . ah, nevermind; I doubt any of you get those references anyway.

Jimbauxx The Shocker

Anyway, it was Henry Hensche who taught my father that a painting is a record of one’s visual development.  Such is true for this picture, as I have surely developed in my ability to develop pictures.  So, I went back and did another raw conversion, then went to Photoshop and use levels and curves instead of the saturation slider.  Here’s the result:

Notice plenty different?  Me either.  It’s less minty green than the earlier version, but it’s still quite green.  It still somewhat sucks too.  That’s weird.

God’s Raw Green Earth

Yes, and although some supposedly pious folks think that God made the Earth and everything on it, they’re also terrified by some plant that grows on it.

Anyway, so, here’s the original raw image uncropped and converted to a jpeg with no post-processing.  In other words, this is how it looked straight out of the camera:

Kind of nasty, disgusting, and uninspiring, isn’t it?  That’s why we process photographs, my friends!  A look at the raw image reveals why the first thing I did in Photoshop was rotate the image six tenths of a degree clockwise.

Pass Me Da Gray

Getting back to one of the themes of my “When To Ditch Color” posting, here’s the shot in grayscale with a little bit of sharpening, something I’m not very skilled at doing.

Yes, cloudy days are often the most appropriate time to go gray.

That’s enough for now, right?  Good.  I hope that you found this lesson to be educational, or at least entertaining!  If anything, the subject and tone of this post stand in stark contrast to the previous post, right?

Planes and Trains

I think that my pal Porkchop might wet himself when he sees this wonderfully-timed picture!  He’s actually one of the few I know who’d get the musical references in this post too!

Don’t Forgetter, I’m on Twitter

For those of you who are on Twitter, don’t forget to follow Jimbaux’s Journal at @JimbauxsJournal if you want to get site updates that way, a’ight?  The Washington Times is already following me!

That’s enough for now.

Jimbaux