Samsung Note 8 and Snapseed Processing — The Water Drops Files

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Anyone walking around with me — typically, just one person — knows I’m apt to be distracted by random photo opportunities. We could be on our way somewhere — me and this other person — or coming back from somewhere or just walking along somewhere when out comes the Samsung Note 8, a quick double tap on the power button, and I’m snapping away at something!

On this particular day, it was water drops on our — mine and this other person’s — Highlander.  

The above shot is pretty much as captured with minimal processing and the addition of a frame. I like adding frames to photos. Some people don’t like them. Live and let live, I say . . . especially when it benefits me. 

I always upload phone photos to the PC and import them into Lightroom. The originals of the following will likely be used elsewhere. Perhaps blended with other photos or used to create a Photoshop brush.

However, when the mood strikes me — and this time it did — I’ll process the photos using Snapseed. You’ve seen examples of such processing in the OneOwner Experiment post. Well, the following series of posts document my efforts to learn more about what can be done with Snapseed (the best way to learn is to do). This post deals with processing the water drops photos but the subjects will be more varied in the subsequent three posts. Three posts for now; as years go by, there may be a few more posts of photos processed with Snapseed. 

Anyway, the photo above was processed three different ways . . . 

In the above attempt, I was just shooting for contrasty goodness while in the photo below I wanted to give the drops a metallic look.

Almost like rivets is what I was shooting for. In this next version, I was shooting more for cast iron features.

This next photo is zoomed in a bit and it’s a repeat of the first treatment.

Those shots were of drops on the roof of the car and since I’m a short dude, the shot is angled. This next shot is from the hood of the car and closer to perpendicular. 

Since both the hood and the water reflect images, I couldn’t take the shot directly from above so it’s still a bit angled. 

I initially wasn’t happy about the impurities in some of the drops — actual dirt captured within the drop itself. I could have edited them out but once processed the impurities made the “metal” effect more realistic (or so I imagine). 

That above shot with more radical post-processing . . . 

This next shot is another attempt at “photo-metalizing” the water. It’s like regular metalizing but without any actual metal being used . . . 

The car’s windshield is sloped so the surface didn’t support the formation of large drops but the drops that were there offered an interesting contrast to the glass . . . and were also somewhat “lined up” along the slope of the glass.

OK, one more and we’ll call this post done . . . 

That one reminded me somewhat of many moons hanging out there in a dark sky. 

One of the reasons I do these posts is to show people that you can look at the world around you both as more interesting than most people realize but also primed for interesting photo treatment. I’m reasonably certain there are no bad photographic subjects if one is willing to put a bit of effort and imagination into it.

Just remember to do it for your own pleasure and benefit since there’s always one or two people who get their jollies by minimizing and deriding your efforts even as they make excuses for their own lack of skills and/or imagination. 

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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