playing around with post-processing

Now that I'm getting more comfortable with photography, I wanted to play around with post-processing a little more, preferably outside of Instagram. I tried a myriad of different open-source options in terms of post-processing, including RawTherapee, Darktable, Gimp, and what I eventually landed on after scouring a few photography (and piracy) subreddits for a free alternative to Adobe Lightroom, RapidRAW. The software is still in progress, but for what it's at right now, I'm prety chuffed. It's easier to use than it is watching youtube tutorials on how to operate gimp and such. And I'm someone who likes to fiddle with things as I go to learn what they do.

I think my favorite part of photography outside of taking the actual pictures is editing them. I like playing around with the sliders and the colors and I like seeing how I can create different feelings and vibes from the same picture. I have four here that I'm particularly proud of:

This one was not so subtly inspired by the album 'The Car' by Arctic Monkeys. Clearly, I've done my own spin on it though I intend to go back and take a cleaner shot. You can see the window I'm looking through no matter how much I try to edit that shadow out.

This was taken around the same time I took the photos of ducks in my other post. The original was very gray and boring, so I tried my best to bring out the colour without it looking uncanny. I think I unintentionally made it look very 90s-ish.

I adore sunsets so best believe I'm grabbing my camera every time I see a particularly juicy looking one. I really wanted to try and bring out the blueness of the sky to contrast the golden clouds a bit here. Not much editing done on this one besides that and my typical healthy dose of grain. You can rip grain from my cold, dead hands. It is my favorite visual effect.

My favorite pic from the bunch. I usually sharpen my pics and try to make things as clear as I can, so I decided to intentionally not do that and go for a more hazy dreamlike vibe. There wasn't much I could do with the skills I have right now to make the blinding white chair less blinding, but I still adore the overall effect I have going on here. 

I think I'm slowly finding my style as I take and edit more pictures. Though in saying that, I'm not really spoiled for choice in regards to subject matter where I'm from. Every picture here is from the same general area, so I'm going to have to get more creative with how I take my pictures. I look forward to the challenge.

Song playing now is Last Goodbye by Post Animal. I recently learned who these guys are (and yes, it was because Joe Keery happened to play with them at one point) and I actually really like their stuff. They deserve more recognition outside of Joe because I reckon their music is pretty dang good.