You may have noticed midway through our 2012 trip to the Pacific coast that a smudge started appearing on some of the pictures. Probably because I have a habit of snapping pictures out of the car window while going 65 mph (as the passenger, of course!). The smudge seemed to disappear by the time we got to LA, only to re-appear (in a different spot) big time on our 2013 Southwest trip, as seen below.
Original photo with that lovely smudge in the upper left, grrrrr!
I finally got around to downloading a trial of Adobe Lightroom and, though a little counter-intuitive, managed to touch-up 70 pictures from the 2013 trip. I’ll be updating them in the next couple of days I hope, then move on to the 2012 trip. I’ve got to hurry, only about 20 days left on the trial!
Tada! No more smudge!
Lightroom also lets you do a lot of other tweaks, including a very simple one that will apply some simple adjustments to color. It is all encapsulated in a two-click process to apply the “Direct Positive” effect. You can see it below.
What does this option do? Ooooooh!
I’m really torn on this one. Removing a smudge seems like a harmless thing to do. Further adjustment, though I think it looks much more “WOW!”, seems to be… wrong? Or is it? I mean, my pictures did not capture the beauty of the places we visited that well, and they really do look as beautiful as the effects-added photos. What to do, what to do?!