Ok, this picture explains my lack of posts recently.
Can you see the difference between these two computer programs? The one on the left is the one I was using. Thing is, it's a student edition. Which is fine because Sarah is a college student. When you purchase this product you have 30 days to register it. Well of course I waited the whole 30 days to register the thing. Why do something before I have to? I follow this same thought process when it comes to my laundry. If I can still walk to my bed around my pile of laundry, there is no need to put it away yet! Let's just say my future husband is gonna looooove me ;)
Anyway, all was going swimmingly until I realized that I registered the product with the wrong email address! It was written down wrong by the computer and I registered it with an email address that doesn't even exist. So I call the little "help" (Ha. Ha. Yeah right) people somewhere in India and asked them what I could do. Unfortunately explaining a complicated problem to people who barely speak english is a long, convoluted process but essentially they told me that there is only one serial number per product and even though the email address it was sent to doesn't exist, the serial number was still sent out. So I would have to send an email to customer support explaining the problem and asking for a new serial number. Too. Much. Work.
So I ordered a new one, one that wasn't a student edition and it just came in the mail!
Now this wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that I've gotten a wee bit addicted to "enhancing" my photos. Now I know you're probably thinking that I go crazy and change everything and all my pictures are Botoxed, but honestly I'm not even close to that talented!
What I have is Lightroom, not Photoshop. Photoshop is like $300 and I don't have a need for it. Lightroom is a lot less expensive. What Lightroom does is it enhances photos. I can go in and make a picture I took without the flash less yellow, I can make the red on an apple more saturated, I can (semi) reduce those big glaring spots you get sometimes from reflections on glass, I can increase the contrast to make an object stand out more, etc. I'm sure I could do more, but I don't really know how yet. All I try to do is make every picture I take look like it was taken at noon, on a sunny day, with no glare. I want the pictures I take and show to you look like what I see in real life. I don't want anything to look fake, I mean come on you can tell when something is fake. You know all those personal photography blogs (not every blog, but a decent amount) where the baby has luminescent skin and bright, electric blue eyes? Yeah, you know that's not natural . . .
So, I got attached to Lightroom and when I didn't have it for two weeks, I had very little urge to write a post because I knew that the quality of the pictures would not be up to my new standards. I'm a perfectionist like that :)
But I'm back now! And I've saved up a LOT of material for posts, so you'll be bombarded pretty soon, just wait and see!
<3 B
P.S. If you are taking photos for yourself and want to enhance them to make them look their best but don't want to go all out, I'd suggest Lightroom. It's pretty easy to figure out and can make a decent amount of difference while still looking natural!
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