Duane Pandorf Photography

Thought I’d share another photo from the past as I continue to organize my past photographs in Lightroom. This photograph was taken across the road from the farm we hunted ducks from near Pettibone, North Dakota.

I have my Leica M-E back from the Leica New Jersey repair facility and its working like new.  Well I guess it should since its only a few months old!  They replaced the CCD/circuit board and readjusted the rangefinder.  Since they had to take it apart I also got new leatherette put on.  Excited to have it back and now I just need to get out and take more photos!

BTW, if you didn’t know already, Adobe has released their first public beta of Lightroom 5. I’m already experimenting with the public beta and have added my entire image library into a LR 5 catalog.

So far I’ve had no issues. There are several new features that immediately came to my attention when I found out about the new beta. They are the following:

• Advanced Healing Brush – Easily remove objects and fix defects—even those with irregular shapes such as threads or lint—with a single brush stroke. Take precise control over what’s being removed as you make unwanted objects just disappear.

• Upright – Straighten tilted images with a single click. Upright analyzes images and detects skewed horizontal or vertical lines. You choose one of four correction methods, and Upright can even straighten images where the horizon is hidden.

• Radial Gradient – Lead your viewer’s eye through your images with more flexibility and control. The radial gradient tool lets you create off-center vignette effects, or multiple vignette areas within a single image.

• Offline editing with Smart Previews – Easily work with images without bringing your entire library with you. Just generate smaller stand-in files called Smart Previews. Make adjustments or metadata additions to Smart Previews and your changes will be automatically applied to the full-size originals later.

I’m especially excited about the first one – Advanced Healing Brush.  As I don’t use Photoshop and don’t have time to learn another program, the new features added to the healing brush have completely eliminated any need I might have had in requiring an investment in Photoshop.  Its that big a deal to me.

The Upright too will help in adjusting many of my wide angle shots from my previous camera lenses.  And the Offline editing with Smart Previews will allow me to keep my entire photo library with me.