It’s just a big puddy cat really.

Female Cheetah, originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

Does it show? Can you tell? I did my first bit of post-processing last night on these images, just to see whether the photos would benefit from a brush with Photoshop, I’m not completely convinced that they do. This is, of course, another rhetorical question Dear Reader, as there is no way of you knowing without access to the original files to compare. You’ll just have to take my word for it when I say I think the originals are better of the two, but at least I’ve had a go. I’m not saying I will be dispensing with Photoshop all together (though the trial version I have runs out in 15 days time, so it’s not so much me stop using this software as this software stopping me from using it).

I have a full weekend ahead, but unfortunately it’s not one where I’ll be out and about with my camera… boo… hiss, instead I will be locked in my office working on my various computers for a large portion of the time, in which I hope to finish my course materials ready for the photo training course I’m giving. That is, if my main computer decides it’s going to play nicely – I’ve mentioned before that whilst it was Bleeding Edge Technology when I first purchase it, oh so many years ago, it’s now Bleedin’ Unreliable. One of it’s latest party tricks is to display a highly attractive vertical banding that would look more at home as a canvas print on a deck chair than a supposedly sophisticated computer. The beauty of Google Docs means that the changes I’d made to the document I was writing on this again machine were immediately reflected on my laptop and I can continue to work without having to try and recover a local document.

I learnt something today; I know that might sound surprising, but i had to learn how my camera handles custom white balance. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never had to do this before, as the camera is so accurate at working it out, but as one of the sections of the course discusses pre and post custom white balance settings, I thought I’d better test it with my camera. I won’t give too much away, but I used a white piece of paper illuminated as per the subject and took a picture of it which the camera then interpreted to set the white balance accordingly. The whole process seems a little more convoluted than seems necessary, especially when comparing a photo taken of the subject before testing this out, there was so little difference I don’t think I’ll be doing it too often. Well, I guess I might well reconsider that if and when I get round to Wedding Photography where it’s imperative that the Bride’s dress doesn’t have any false colour casts to them like yellow, blue, etc.

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