A lone fisherman looks out over Lake Superior shortly after sunrise as the Edwin Gott steams past the Two Harbors, Minnesota breakwater. The James Oberstar may be seen in the distance, having left Duluth earlier in the morning. A “superior” morning!

Now … yes, I did use Photoshop Elements for this image.

• Did I change the color? No.
• Did I change the exposure? No.
• What changes did I make to this image?

My edits to this photograph were minor, but important. Other than some small sharpening to increase clarity of the image, my main edits were judicious use of cropping. If you have digital zoom turned on for your camera, please turn it off! Post processing with an “in focus” image allows the photographer to decide via cropping to better tell the desired story, or a different story. Thus, why use digital zoom, when one may always crop later in post processing better tell your story. Remember, a good image tells a story … thus a “superior morning” (as in Lake Superior 15 minutes after sunrise)

Here are two different crops of my image. I like the first crop better as it brings out the fisherman, the second freighter in the distance, the ore boat’s wake and birds. The second image still is nice … with some foreground and a buoy.

Image #1

Image #2