The Camera Never Lies

So the saying goes. When I think about it the camera can only record what it sees though many modern cameras have various tricks built in to modify the result. Also there are some useful programs (on the PC as that is what I use) to improve or maybe I should say enhance the final result. Take this morning's effort as an example. I had taken a few shots to try out the Nikon S9050's assisted panorama shooting. As usual there was brilliant Sunshine before our walk and brilliant Sunshine afterwards but typically dull and overcast skies while I was taking the shots. More about panorama shots another day.

This is the first shot as taken with the Nikon - a straight forward colour shot:



As can be seen - thoroughly dull and uninspiring. Yesterday I had discovered a free program - VirtualPhotographer - which can run stand alone and as a Photoshop plug-in. (Should work in any program which can handle Photoshop plug-ins). Many of the things this program can do are available in Photoshop Elements but this way can be quicker. Unlike many plug-ins which give a small view of what they are doing VirtualPhotographer can be expanded to near full screen. One thing I do like is its ability to show a split view with the right hand half showing the original and the left hand showing the modifications in real time. This is it showing Polarize Grad with a pale blue chosen to give some colour to the sky:



The result:



Now I wanted to see what might be hidden in the sky and the shadows. For this I used the ReDynaMix plug-in as it can find subtle changes in contrast and enhance them. Somehow it picks out details you hardly noticed were there.

The final photo being:



The camera may not lie but I can't guarantee the same for this photographer.