There's just something about sunsets and water that seem to go really well together. Some of the best photos I have taken in my life have been of sunsets over a lake. That's not to say sunrises can't be equally as beautiful. @tattoodjay has made a fine portfolio of amazing sunrise photos.
I remember when I was a kid we took a trip out to "The New England States". At one particular campground, on the shores of Bar Harbor Maine, my dad nearly broke his neck trying to get down to the water in the dark so he could get a shot of the sunrise.
There's just something about sunrises and sunsets that draw us in. Perhaps it is some latent memory of our ancestors worshiping the sky god as it makes the way across the sky. Then again, it's probably just the beautiful colors they give us.
As I mentioned in some of my other posts, a couple of weeks ago we were on the shores of Black Lake in Onaway, Michigan. In addition to catching some awesome shots of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights), I was also able to snag some pretty cool shots of the sunset.
Although the area of the campground we were in was pretty busy, we had some great views the first night of the trip.
Unfortunately, the second night, our neighbors decided to park their boat out in front of their campsite. While technically they have every right to do that, it kind of killed the mood for my sunset shot that evening. Don't get me wrong, the boat does look kind of cool in some of the shots, but you also kind of wonder how nice the shot could have been if it weren't there.
Thank goodness for AI. Thanks to the Google Magic Eraser tool on my Pixel 8 Pro phone, we no longer have to wonder.
Not too bad right?! I know, if you want to knit pick, the water does look a little fake, and if you compare the shoreline between the two photos, it's pretty obvious that there was some editing done, but really, it's pretty dang impressive I think.
As someone who admits to having zero artistic skill, I find this absolutely amazing. Trust me, I have tried to use Photoshop and all of those other tools to touch up or remove objects from photos in the past. Some people are awesome at it. I am not one of those people. Being able to circle the part I want gone and letting the Google AI do its work amazing!
Here's another example of how amazing the Magic Eraser is. It's a bit tough because I actually kind of like this photo. The pontoon boat doesn't bug me too much and the lens flare that I was able to get with my smartphone is quite impressive.
Then we have the edited copy of the photo. Some of the lens flare is still there, but the effect isn't quite as dramatic as it is in the first photo. Again, if you look at the water really closely, you can see some inconsistencies, but for the most part, the result is actually quite amazing.
I was showing this to my dad when I was over the other day and he thought it was pretty cool. He also shared a memory with me of how back in the day there were purists who felt that photos shouldn't be edited. There was a firm belief that what you shoot is what you get whether you messed it up or not.
I wonder what those people think of all the tools that are available to us today.
I was really trying to get the orange on the water in this photo. The neighbors dog was just an added bonus. It was a bit hard for @mrsbozz and I to have a dog so close given the recent loss of ours.
Eventually, I got smart and I ask my wife if she wanted to take a little walk down the road. We moved past our neighbors to a site that was empty with no boats between us and the sunset and I got these last photos.
As I was kneeling down to take these photos I kept thinking to myself "I smell mint". That's when I looked down and I saw this:
I'm not sure if it was naturally occuring, but I found myself in a whole patch of mint. I know that mint is kind of an invasive plant, so it wouldn't shock me if someone was making a mojito and threw the rest of their mint on the ground and then nature took over.
However it got there, I got a good laugh out of the fact that the reason I smelled mint was because I was knee deep in it.
Finally, I wanted to share one of the photos that @mrsbozz took of the sunset on our trip. It turned out really well. She has a Samsung Galaxy S21+ phone if I remember correctly. It does a good job of taking photos, but she doesn't play with all the manual settings like I do on mine.
Have you played around with the Google AI photo editing yet? What do you think of it? Is this the first time you have seen it in action outside of a commercial on TV? Are you impressed?
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It's pretty crazy how good the AI is becoming for photos. I remember removing things like that the long way, taking hours to make sure all the shadows and everything was perfect in the sections I replaced things. Now, boom, one click and AI can do it. Within the next few years (or sooner) that one click job will look almost perfect as well. Crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy good and the fact that it is only going to get better is kind of scary!
Very good.
I also like to hunt for good shots. Sometimes it is possible to find good macros or animals.
Animals often make for great models!
I'm impressed by the photos.
Thank you!
Great captures Bozz. I really like the red sunset ones! That is cool how you found the mint patch, did you take any home to add to food? Im not sure off the top of my head what you might put it in though, so perhaps just a good excuse to make Mojito cocktails? 😅
No, I didn't take any. These days it's hard to trust wild plants like that. You never know what might have pissed on them! We don't eat a lot of lamb and I have never had a mojito that I can remember.
It looks like a nice place :) Hopefully you will continue to enjoy your summer 🙏 The edits look good, I remember when cut and paste of parts of a picture seemed like magic!
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
It definitely doesn't take as much skill as it used to. Which is good for people like me!
That looks awesome. I've done some manual stuff in the past using Photoshop clone tool, but that would have taken way longer vs the seconds it seems this method would take. I wonder if they'll update some of the older phones with it. I have a Pixel Fold that I would love to have that on.
I think they rolled it out to some users that have Google One subscriptions. I pay for it just to get the extra cloud storage, but they throw in some other benefits too. Yeah, the clone tool I wasn't too bad with, but anything beyond that was out of my wheelhouse. This is so easy, you just circle what you want gone and then let the magic happen.
Yes, just checked and I have it! Thanks for the great pointer and info! Will definitely play with a few older pics, and handy to have in the toolbox.
Very cool! I'm glad you are able to experiment with it a bit.
Wow... this one is very cool, I am sure it was warm also there to look it 😅👌👌👌👌🍻
Cool sun photos 😅👌👌🌞🌞🌞
Thanks, I appreciate that! I was kind of proud of that one as well! It was actually a bit chilly, but we had a nice fire to keep us warm when we got back to our campsite.
But ... good thing is day was end good 😋👌👌👌🍻☕
I hope you find more this cool sun photos .
Me too!
They came out great even with the editing! You can see where the pontoon was, but it's a pretty amazing erasing job. What a pretty place!
This is one of the lesser known gems when it comes to State Parks in Michigan. I think part of it has to do with the fact that there are just so few sites right on the water. If you didn't know the boat was there would you still have been able to tell?
Great shots.
Thank you!
So beautiful
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