lucy and lightroom 5

I went ahead and purchased the Lightroom 5 upgrade last week when it finally hit the store shelves. I could have gotten a copy earlier than last Friday, but I'm old fashioned in that I want physical media if I can get it. I'm not happy about getting just a digital download, especially if it costs any amount of money. The LR 5 upgrade cost $79, whether I purchased it direct from Adobe and downloaded it or purchased the physical boxed copy from B&H Photography (which I did).

I'm trying to decide if the upgrade was worth it with regards to new features, so I've been experimenting with what are some of the advertised features, such as the radial filter. I used the radial filter to darken the background around Lucy's head to better separate her head from the background. The center of the filter is slightly to the left, almost to her right tear duct. I then darkened the shadows around Lucy's head as well as desaturated the background. I kept the color the camera chose. When I tried to perform a white balance by sampling Lucy's white fur, the photo came out too blue, too cool. I don't know what's the "correct" color balance, but I like what I see and so I kept it.

Because I used the GX1 to take these photos I had the camera create both a monochrome JPEG as well as a raw file. The mono photo is straight out of the camera, with only a 16:9 crop applied.

I used the Panasonic 20mm at f/2 with the GX1.