Golden Spiral

I finally took the plunge and signed up to Adobe's Creative Cloud with full access to Photoshop and Lightroom, with LR Mobile App for the iPad. To celebrate I took what was supposed to a quick trip to RHS Wisley for lunch, and the intention of grabbing some macro shots, ideally with soft backlighting.

Surprisingly, Wisley was quiet for Saturday (people are probably waiting for the Flower Show next week), and I had a lovely relaxing lunch of homemade pea soup. As for the second part of my agenda, the light wasn't really playing ball and there were relatively few flowering plants which matched the image I had in my head. However, the Surrey Sculpture Society were showing sculptures around the garden, and I really liked this golden Ammonite Slice by Mark Reed, and it becomes my final Saturday entry into chantler63's August Challenge: Shapes and Shadows.

Coming back to my new Adobe purchases, this photo was edited on the iPad (and the changes already synced back to my desktop), but it wasn't all plain sailing! To use LR Mobile I had to upgrade the iPad to IOS7 (new set of things to learn #1). I then found I had to start to use collections in LR for synchronising (new set of things to learn #2). Then of course I had to learn how to use the App (...#3). Fortunately, the Blipfoto App is the same!

As for Photoshop - my poor old brain struggled for over an hour trying to create an HDR shot of Wisley house and add a simple gradient to the sky - the workflow is quite different to how PS Elements works, so I am going to have to start reading up or watching some of the numerous video courses available! Guess that's my evenings sorted this winter!

Just found one issue with LR Mobile - when it saves the file to the iPad it changes the date:( I've had to reload it from LR on my desk top - serves me right for not posting on the day!