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Sleeklens Landscape Adventure Collection Review. I was kindly asked by the folks at the Danish company Sleeklens whether I would do a review of their Landscape Adventure Actions for Photoshop. These actions have been designed by Sleeklens to make the photographers workflow quicker and easier when it comes to post production of their images. They state on their website that there are fifty six actions available but there are in fact sixty four in total, and these can be easily installed by following their online guide. These actions can be used both on JPEG and RAW files, however the lists are based on using RAW images and this should be kept in mind. To the actions themselves: There are eight different sets of actions within the whole collection. These are Exposure, Base, Tone, All In One, Enhance, Speciality, Temperature and Web File Preparations. Each of these sets have a number of presets within them and can be adjusted by using the opacity slider once applied.  Exposure - I have to say after going through every one of these actions I don’t think that I’d be inclined to use any of them, purely because I tend to make preliminary adjustments in Camera RAW before opening in Photoshop anyway. I also found that I could fine tune my exposure adjustments much better in Photoshop in comparison to using the Sleeklens actions, and to be honest, using the action was not any faster than the way I would normally do it. Base - As with the exposure actions, I found that some of the base actions were pretty much pointless as these adjustments could be made in Camera Raw before opening in Photoshop. However, I can see how the Autumn Colours, Retro, and Desaturated could be applied effectively if you were going for a certain look in your images. It’s not really up my street though. Tone - Once again, if you want fine tuning, Photoshop is much better. However, if you wanted to play about and give an overall effect to your image then some of these like the Cinematic and Warm Highlights actions could be quite fun. All In One Actions - Once again, not my thing. Personally for me they’re a bit in your face and seem to take a lot to tone down. The black and white actions irritated me because as I used the opacity slider to take back the impact, it also completely reduced the black and white effect taking it back to colour. Seems a little pointless really.  With All In One Action Black And White At 100% Opacity.  With All In One Action Black And White At 61% Opacity. Enhance - Out of all of the actions within this set I really liked the Warm Highlights. The fact that I could brush in exactly where I wanted to warm up certain areas of the image was very appealing. Even at 100% opacity it still wasn’t completely overpowering. This action I probably could, and would, make use of. I think the fact that you can brush in on the Enhance set as a whole means that more people would find it useful than some of the other sets in the Landscape Adventure Collection.  Without Enhance Warm Highlights Action.  With Enhance Warm Highlights Action Brushed In At 100% Opacity. Speciality - I’ve never been one for dreamy images previously, however, after trying out the Dreamy Landscapes and Dark Dreams actions I got quite hooked! I can see how both of these could be applied effectively to specific scenes giving a magical atmosphere to images. It’s one that I may well consider using in the future.  Without Speciality Actions.  With Speciality Dreamy Landscapes Action At 58% Opacity.  With Speciality Dark Dreams Action At 90% Opacity.
Temperature - I can see how these actions could be useful but for me personally I will be sticking to fine tuning in Photoshop. Web File Preparation - Quick, easy and probably useful for some, however I already have my own resizing action in Photoshop. Overall I think that the majority of these actions are not for professionals because they will have already formed their own routines for speed, efficiency and personal style with regards to processing their images. However, I do think there are a few creative actions within the collection that may appeal. There are a huge number of actions; I think this possibly needs to be scaled down somewhat and also the ability to be able to brush in on actions needs to be increased within the collection. For the £37 you would pay for the package at present, it would be a useful tool certainly for non professionals who aren’t so familiar with using Photoshop, and the collection could make their life easier and make image processing a little less daunting perhaps. To find out more about Sleeklens and their variety of different photography actions and overlays for both Lightroom and Photoshop please follow the links below. Sleeklens Website https://sleeklens.com/ Sleeklens Landscape Adventure Photoshop Actions https://sleeklens.com/product/landscape-adventure-photoshop-actions/?currency=GBP All Sleeklens Photoshop Actions https://sleeklens.com/product-category/photoshop-actions/
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Recently I had the pleasure of working for Cornwall Councillor for Falmouth Penwerris, and Labour's Parliamentary candidate for Truro and Falmouth, Cllr Hanna Toms. My brief was to provide her with images for publicity usage in her 2015 political campaign. Some of these images were more informal than others and were to include local landmarks, public demonstrations, public speaking, and also doorstep canvassing. It was quite a challenge in several ways. Not only on most occasions did I have to shoot in bright harsh sunlight, but there were times when I was running backwards along pavements and roads trying to avoid crowds of people, cars, and tripping up! I have to say that I really enjoyed all aspects of this job, and I hope that there will be more opportunities in the future to do similar. From Cllr Hanna Toms: 'Phil was a pleasure to work with, professional, reassuring and most of all patient beyond belief. She took time to understand the brief and gave a lot of thought to how and what would give me the best results. I am delighted with these pictures and would whole heartedly recommend Phil and her work.' Below are a few examples of the images that will be used.    |
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