Author Archives: Gene Wilburn

About Gene Wilburn

Gene Wilburn is a writer ~ photographer ~ humanist

A Fish Story

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

When my lovely wife Marion went up north to Sauble Beach last Wednesday to spend some time with her sister Denise at Denise’s cottage, I stayed at home so I could attend ROM Song Circle on Friday night. Being a … Continue reading →

Posted in Humour | 4 Comments

Slide Rule (I)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

Autumn 1959. I’d never been truly inspired by a teacher until I entered high school (Lyndon, Illinois) and got Mr. Buikema for general science and algebra. He was a newly minted teacher from Northern Illinois University at Dekalb. With his … Continue reading →

Posted in Math, Memoir, Technology | 5 Comments

Retirement: The Great Divide

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

[With this post I’m beginning a new series of what I’ve dubbed “cozy essays”] “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” — L.P. Harteley The thing about retirement is that you realize your past is longer … Continue reading →

Posted in Friends, Memoir | 2 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 8

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

Plugins for Black and White After exploring the techniques introduced in this series, you may think, yeah, they’re effective, but it’s a lot of work to get to a finished image. Aren’t there any shortcuts? The happy answer is yes. … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop Tutorial, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 7

Posted on January 16, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

Vignetting for B&W Vignetting a photograph simply means making the edges and corners of an image darker or lighter than the rest of the image. With subtle vignetting, the treatment subdues the background, leading the eye to the foreground. Heavy … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop Tutorial, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 6

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Gene Wilburn

Layer Masks We covered Layers previously, now let’s dive into Layer Masks, one of the handiest tools in your digital darkroom toolkit. Let’s start with this colour photo, a still life taken at Benares House Museum, Mississauga, Ontario. Now let’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop Tutorial, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 5

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Gene Wilburn

Curves In Pt. 3 we looked at the Levels tool. Now let’s turn to Levels’ big sister: Curves. The Curves tool works well for colour photography but it is especially useful in B&W photography because it can be used to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 4

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Gene Wilburn

What Makes a Good Digital Black & White Image? Let’s take a break from the technical side of B&W image processing to pursue the question of what makes a good digital B&W image, aside from its technical merits. The possibilities … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography | 2 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 3

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Gene Wilburn

Introduction to Layers It’s layers that separate Photoshop pros from the novices. The idea of layers is simple: if you stack, say, a copy of your image on top of your original image, and both are transparent, you can look … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Digital Black and White Photography, Pt. 2

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Gene Wilburn

In-Camera B&W So. Let’s get started. The simplest way to get into B&W is to set your digital camera’s shooting mode to BW, Monochrome, Monotone, or whatever it may be called on your particular camera model. The above menu is … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop Tutorial | 5 Comments