Chris Orwig

Pour yourselves a Campari and soda, dekeOpolitans, it's time for another Martini Hour. This week's installation is the last of those we recorded in Las Vegas, in the VIP lounge we retired to after our live show at Photoshop World, with two compassionate, inspiring, life-affirming teachers of photography. On my right, fine-art photographer, teacher and all-around leather-sportcoat pony-tailed source of calm inspiration, JP Caponigro. On my left, photographer, art educator,  and all around cropped-hair SoCal surfer source of energized creativity, Chris Orwig.

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We like to make screenshots pretty here at dekeOnline, so when I went to capture the interface of Lightroom 2 for my post a while back, I picked an old photo of Venice at sunrise I had handy. Just so happens, this particular image really benefited from one of the new features in this version of Lightroom, the Graduated Filter tool, which allows you to apply your chosen adjustments with a mask that emulates a classic graduated filter. In one stroke, I could lighten the foreground while keeping the sky romantically dark and mysterious.

I shot the original image with my trusty old 4MP Canon Digital Elph, as I emerged, bleary eyed from taking the midnight train from Rome, to this amazing scene of sunrise over the Grand Canal. I had seen both the Pyramids at Giza and the Sistine Chapel in the previous week, but this view brought tears to my eyes. Tears which are my excuse for some serious exposure issues. But Lightroom's graduated filter did an amazingly simple job of reviving the Venitian sunrise experience. And on a JPEG no less. Read more »