I don’t have many shoots where we’re outside after 10am in the brightest sun of the day… but it happens. In this case, we only had mid day on the hottest day of the summer in New England. We were all sweating our clothes through… except the model who never broke even a drop of sweat!! How did she do that??!! Anyway, our limited time found us outside in a garden with clear primary colors and heavy dark shadows… extremely bright highlights and an impatient and sweltering crew. A year later and I’m looking at these images with new eyes in light of having installed the new Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop 6.

I’ve been testing the new features as I find them… or need them and the new organization in LR where “Fill light” is broken into Whites and Blacks, Highlights and Shadows… 4 separate sliders that really let you put your finger on what an individual image needs. In addition… in PS6 there’s a whole new “Blur” gallery that will simulate the lensbaby effects but with more precision about where the image will be blurred, what direction the blur will take, by how much, etc. Very controllable and fun to play with! There’s even a “Tilt/Shift” blur! Cool!

There’s lots more but I’d rather share some of the results of trying to do something more with all these mid-day shots. Some alternative treatments to the first which is the original. Suggestions welcome… what would you try?

We did find a little shade in corners to hide in and a few of the new tools worked better than what I was able to achieve a year ago.