Still life, Ammonite

Still life. It's a weird name. Almost, but not quite, an oxymoron. It certainly doesn't describe the act of creating one, which can be one of the most animated of all the disciplines. In terms of the photographer, if not the subject.

Nor does it have to be of something alive, or even having been alive. In this case though, it's just been a very long time since it's been alive.

LR/LR Mobile/Snapseed

I did a test today to try out all my various softwares and see what could get me closest to my vision at the start of the day.

Nik Efex - which you all should have because it's now free, courtesy of Google who now own it - came a respectable last. I couldn't seem to get the vibrant zones out of it that I wanted. It could just be that it's getting old, or maybe I am.

ON1 was close to getting the blip but I just felt I wasn't getting exactly what I was after. I think I'm going to spend a great deal of time learning ON1 though. It seems to gel better with my mindset. I especially like being able to layer and tweak effects. And still have an adjustment brush available to me.

Oddly Snapseed, which is made by the same bunch who made Nik Efex and works in a similar way, was my favourite. I love the way the selection points work on a touch interface. The layers function allows me to really separate the ammonite from the wood in a highly intuitive way. I don't think the nik crowd really worked on improving nik's features after they got bought and put to work on Google Photos and Snapseed. Snapseed is pretty much what Nik would have been had they continued with it. I'd just love to see a plugin for LR, then I could properly export it at resolutions I want to and catalog it all in the one place.