Welcome

I am Rod Wynne-Powell, and this is my way to pass on snippets either of a technical nature, or related to what I am currently doing or hope to be doing in the near future.

A third-person description follows:
Professional photographer, Lightroom and Photoshop Workflow trainer, Consultant, digital image retoucher, author, and tech-editor for Martin Evening's many 'Photoshop for Photographers' books.

For over twenty years, Rod has had a client list of large and small companies, which reads like the ‘who’s who’ of the imaging, advertising and software industries. He has a background in Commercial/Industrial Photography, was Sales Manager for a leading London-based colour laboratory and has trained many digital photographers on a one-to-one basis, in the UK and Europe.
Still a pre-release tester for Adobe in the US, for Photoshop, he is also very much involved in the taking of a wide range of photographs, as can be seen in the galleries.

See his broad range of training and creative services, available NOW. Take advantage of them and ensure an unfair advantage over your competitors…


View any Gallery by Clicking the relevant TEXT Headline

Thursday 24 December 2009

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year


To all those visitors to the galleries on my Blog, I hope that 2010 proves that with the right attitude, we can all work and be rewarded for our efforts, and confound all the Doom Merchants who would rob us of our smiles. Times are tough, but they need not be miserable. Recently my village suffered from a severe loss of services, and some continue to do so, but there are many even in this country, who are far worse off. Try to think for a moment of all those in that beautiful county of Cumbria, who are without their homes.
Think of those families and friends of soldiers and airmen in the hostile lands of Afghanistan and elsewhere far from home, and some of those families whose loved ones have been lost in the conflicts in other parts of this troubled world.

Be grateful for whatever we have.

If you would like to print out your own version of my Christmas Card, it can be found here:http://tinyurl.com/ydmuktn

Sunday 20 December 2009

Snow and Village Life

Snow came to Caddington once again, overnight Thursday, and Friday dawned into bright sunlight. At first the sky was a dome of clear blue from horizon to horizon, the villagers were slow to venture out, but with camera and a second lens, I wandered around to capture the activity.

Several school-age children soon realised that this worth getting out of bed for. However to their evident dismay, this was ‘the wrong type of snow’ since it would not stick together, so snowballing and igloo-building was doomed to failure, but kick it and it makes a fine display!
It was a time for the very young to be towed on sleds by parents doing the morning shopping, or in one case (though sadly after I had put the camera away!) for some bright spark to ‘borrow’ Gran’s mobility scooter to tow a kid along the pavement at a much slicker, and effortless pace!

Dogs were walked, babies prammed, and toddlers swung, and smiles infected everyone, there was definitely a holiday spirit abroad. However, clouds began to form, and soon the sun began to be veiled, but before it disappeared totally, I did manage to capture some of the interplay of light and shade on snow-covered cars in the local garage, a lone starling singing from atop my own kitchen chimney cowl, a red letterbox with its ‘arm’ of snow, and a few examples of how snow can transform a mundane scene into something more magical.

But now it is Sunday morning, and as I write this, I have learned that what I believed was my boiler failing again, and my home telephone choosing to go on the blink, was in fact a village-wide calamity. Amazingly, an emergency committee has sprung into action, and volunteers are distributing small electric hotplates and heaters, from the Community Centre to anyone in need, and others are paying visits to the local elderly. The Gas supply will be out for the next few days, and we all need to turn off at the mains.

Snow has brought a sense of community in so many ways.

Monday 14 December 2009

Aylesbury Church Concert

Having thoroughly enjoyed hearing the Aylesbury Community Concert Band playing in Wendover High Street, I wanted to hear them again in a church hall in Aylesbury town centre. Not knowing the venue I set off early, but the details I had were not correct, so I ended up walking around St. Mary’s, which was totally deserted, I tried phoning to get an update but there was no reply.

Not only that as the time approached for the start, and all the notices made no mention of any event that night at this church, it became obvious I was not in the right place, finally with only minutes in hand I got a return call which told me I had to go to the Methodist Church, but the description and directions matched the Wesleyan Chapel, which ironically was very close to where my car was parked!

The beauty of the venue was there was a raised balcony from which I could shoot and I could move around for different viewpoints. It was still on the borderline from a speed point of view – digital noise would therefore be a challenge, but I managed.

I also got a chance to sing, but I doubt I was heard above the band, even though I put my all into ‘Oh, Come All Ye Faithful’!

Friday 11 December 2009

Wendover – Christmas Carols around the Christmas Tree

It was a foggy evening drive from Caddington to Wendover, and I was cutting it fine, so finding a space to park the car was none too easy, but I had seen the crowds forming so knew the destination, and a brisk walk never did me any harm.

The Aylesbury Community Concert band were there to play Christmas Carols, and I had just enough time to get myself ready to take some shots of the players. There was a good and cheerful crowd, and the playing was excellent to my ears, yet I could see that everyone was finding their hands and fingers getting steadily colder, which must make it hard to play an instrument.

The children were having a great time running round the War Memorial, quite oblivious of the chill, and probably equally oblivious of the music, except when it came to ‘Away in a Manger’ when they did burst into song!

Friday 4 December 2009

Lightroom – Badges on the Grid Images

Recently I have found that some users of Lightroom are not fully aware of what all the badges on their pictures within Lightroom's Library module Grid display actually mean or do.

I have created a single A5 PDF document that explains their functions, so that it becomes more obvious just how informative as well as powerful this is. Adobe helpfully provides numerous hotspots with lists of the options that can be displayed as badges on each image. Technically the three small icons in the bottom right are the badges, but I have lumped all the items overlaid on the pictures under the name 'badges' for simplicity.

The items without a contextual list of choices of what to display have Tooltips to explain their function.

Overall, I hope that what I have explained proves useful. The PDF is in the Galleries section the right, titled 'Lightroom Badges'.