dramatic photomatix

Here is another shot from my weekend away. I tried a bunch of different things and have tons of images to play with now, just no time. For this shot i used a 14mm lens handheld and bracketed 7 frames. I ran the proper exposure along with the lightest and darkest exposures through photomatix and cranked up the strength. I applied a curve once i had the image in photoshop and sharpened the image. I also did a vignette on this one, but not on the image below.
The image below is the normal exposure converted to black and white, sharpened and a curve to boost the contrast.

When doing a comparison here not only look at the sky but also at the seaweed to the right that in the original gets blocked up.

photographers

Like i said in my last post, things went down hill fast, kidding.
While still inside the covered bridge we set the camera on a tripod with a 14mm lens on it, thanks murray. I then took photos while gordo jumped at the camera. We then switched roles and it was my turn to jump. I had two flashes set up, one to each side and at about a 45 degree angle to where we would end up.
I opened the photos in photoshop and placed one on top of the other so i had two layers. I highlighted both layera and did an auto align layers. I then just created a mask and drew a very rough selection around about half the image with the lasso tool, refined edge to feather it a bit, and then filled that part of the mask with black. We were now both showing through.

covered bridge

I did some shooting today with a good friend of mine at some different locations along the coast.
We of course started the day shooting some landscapes but as what typically happens when two photographers get together, the serious shooting quickly ended and the crazy ideas came out. We shot alot of really goofy stuff and then packed up and headed for home. We saw this covered bridge on the way back and decided to stop and have have a little strobist shoot. Strobist for those of you that dont know is all about off camera flash. Here i used one flash to camera right and drug the shutter to 1/8 sec to bring up the sun coming through the slats in the boards. That is the sun at top right, not the flash.
In photoshop i desatruated and sharpened and applied a circular gradient inside his flashes head to make it look like it was going off.
There will be several more shots from this shoot posted and you will see just how silly things got.

halloweeen is coming

I didn't shoot this for any reason really. I was actually just trying out a lens i just got (85 f1.8) and the cat happened to yawn.
I did do the raw funky sliders thing to it and then just duplicated my background layer, went to filter-distort-lens correction and laid down a heavy vignette. Then just added a layer mask and painted in black to take the darkening from the vignette off the cats face. I sharpened, cropped (deciding the composition was the hardest) and was done.

4000asa hockey

I haven't posted in at least a week and it feels like forever. I hit another busy stretch but that should level out soon enough.
I just wanted to throw up a quick image of hockey action. I shot this with the nikon d700 at 4000asa. The speed was needed as i was shooting through the glass (dirty) which takes away about one stop.
I shot the image in raw, uncompressed, and at 14 bit.
You can see lots of grain in the high res image but it holds up pretty good, especially compared to the d2x which would have added huge gobs of color noise.
The only thing i did in photoshop was a quick curve to lessen the cyan cast in the whites and i used the sharpen tool on all the logos on his jersey. The rule is to use the sharpen tool on any text or shiny things, like jewelery.

photographer portrait

I was set up early for a portrait i had to do last week and my friend and fellow photographer graciously offered to sit in so i could check my light. Really easy light actually, one off camera flash shot through an umbrella. I mainly just needed to balance it with the ambient light that was hitting the background.
All i really needed to do in photoshop was to darken down the white trim in and around the windows behind him. I also retouched a bit, added a fairly heavy vignette and sharpened. I did a slight curve also but i usually always do.
A little note to a curve. To warm up an image a bit but not produce a noticable color case you can just slide the shadow point for green a bit left to add magenta and the shadow point for blue a bit left to add some yellow. This will just tint your blacks a bit and as a result warm your image up.
Below is a black and white that i played with in camera raw.
I much prefer the color version but added the other just for fun.

photomatix landscape

We picked out our halloween pumpkins today and I just so happened to have my camera in the car.
I shot seven shots bracketed by a stop each hand held.
I ran the normal exposure, darkest and lightest through photomatix.
I set the strength to the max and once again just played with the sliders until it looked right. The pumpkins however never looked right.
I opened the image in photoshop and placed the normal exposure image on top of the photomatix image. I placed a layer mask on this normal top layer and painted over the sky and trees with black so the photomatix layer underneath showed through. I then lowered the opacity of this top layer to about 40 percent to blend it in with the photomatix pumpkins.
I sharpened the imgage and then used the dodge tool set to highlights and used it on the orange sign to make the light look a bit more mottled. I lowered the saturation of the image by a bit also.
The normal exposure image is below.

photomatix

I showed up early the other day for a shoot and ended up with a half an hour with nothing to do.
Might as well take a few photos i figured.
I set the camera on a tripod and bracketed my exposure over a 7 stop range. I wanted to see what photomatix would give me as i have not had much luck with it lately.
I ran all 7 images through photomatix and played with the setting quite a bit until i got the look i wanted.
I turned the strength all the way up and lowered the color saturation a fair bit. My other sliders ended up being quite far the the right side of the screen also (sorry as i did not mark down what they were). Once i was done with photomatix i saved the image as a tiff and opened it up in photoshop.
I did a bit of retouching and then duplicated my background layer. I applied a fairly heavy vignette in filter - distort - lens correction and then applied a layer mask and painted in the areas that i wanted to keep light (background). I then used the dodge tool set to highlights and a strength of about 8 to paint over the right side of the building a bit, was pretty dark. I hit the tree a bit also with it and some areas of the building. I then used the burn tool set to midtones and a strength of about 8 and darkened up the left side and middle of the building. I used this on the tree a bit also.
I then smart sharpened and did a curve to adjust the colors and was done.
I put the original photo below.

high contrast in camera raw

I shot this image tonight for a passport photo.
I thought i would have some fun and was pretty happy with the result.
I used one light bounced into an umbrella that was placed in front of her and aimed straight at her. It was about 6 feet high.
I opened the image in camera raw and used these settings:
temperature 5150, tint -10, exposure +.05, recovery 100, fill light 70, blacks 67, brightness +41, contrast +100, clarity 100, vibrance +100, saturation -88.
After all that i hit open.
I duplicated the background layer and went to filter - other - high pass. Set the amount to 6.4 and hit ok. Change the blend mode in the layers pallate to overlay and then lower the opacity to 66%. Flatten the layers.
Then i smart sharpened at an amount of 50%.
Next duplicate your background layer. Highlight the background layer (bottom layer) and fill with black (edit - fill). Now highlight the top layer (background copy) and in the layers pallate add a layer mask. Fill the mask with black. You will now see a black canvas. Change your forground color to white, select your paint brush in the tool tray and use a fairly small brush. Then make the small brush strokes such as you can see in my image above. Then use a larger brush and paint in white in the mask over your subject so no black strips can be seen on them.
Flatten and do a curve adjustment to up the contrast a bit more and save.
Sorry for rushing through this technique but if you try it you will see that it is very easy.

neg strip again

I was just playing with the neg strip again and thought i would post it.
Still not sure if i have found where i am going with it.
I just opened one image file and dragged my neg strip onto it (see earlier post for strip details).
I duplicated this layer and erased the numbers then created new ones with the text tool.
I used the blur tool on them a bit too just to make it look like they belonged.

image restoration

Anyone that has a copy of photoshop loaded on their computer has received this request before, "is there anything you can do with this, it is the only photo in existance of this family". This last request came from my dad so of course i was going to take a stab at it. I also love doing restoration on old black and white images. Color not so much but black and white, bring it on.
I started this image by duplicating the background layer. I then used this new top layer for all my corrections.
First i desaturated the layer and then using the healing tool i retouched all the cracks and marks out. Just takes time and patience is all, really not that hard. When the healing tool messes up just switch to the clone stamp tool. I used the clone tool for all the edge work around the outside of the photo.
I then added a curve adjustment layer and brought the shadows up quite a bit. I also added a bit of yellow and magenta just to give it a little bit of warmth.
I used the burn tool set to shadows to darken up the kids legs a bit as they were weak.
I used the measure tool to straighten the photo and then cloned in the left edge to extend the background.
I cropped it and was done.
I also tried to reduce the pattern in the photo but had no luck.
Below is the finished photo.

white on white

I did a shoot recently of two pharmacists, seperately. The client wanted the shots on a white background for an ad in a newspaper and the subjects would be wearing a white lab coat, cringe.
I decided to try and make the background a bit whiter than the lab coat so i could clean it up and at least have an edge to work with on the coats. I used one light (shoot thru umbrella) on the subjects, and one flash pointed at a 45 to the background to make the area behind their heads white. I was in a very small office so the wall to the right of the subject provided fill.
The people were great, shots looked fine, and the individual shots were easy to clean up.
I thought i would see how difficult it was to strip them together and that proved a bit more challenging but not too much.
I extended the left of the canvas on the ladys photo and drug the man s shot in. I created a mask on the top layer (man) and filled it with black to hide all, i needed to see the ladys arm as i wanted it in the front. I then made a rough selection of what i wanted of the man to show and filled it with white. I chose my paint brush and painted in the rest of him (close to the lady).
By the way, i used the dodge tool set to highlights with an opacity of about 15 to make the backgrounds white in the single photos.
I also had the ladys head pointed down a bit which resulted in her neck buckling. I used the liquify filter to tuck it up into place.

film strip

I have been wanting to create a film strip digitally and place photos into it for awhile but just never got around to creating the neg image. I scanned a strip of 2 1/4 black and white film today on an epson flatbed scanner. I placed white paper behind it and just did a reflective scan. I cleaned it up in photoshop (dust and marks retouched) and upped the contrast with a curve till i got just black and white, no greys.
I used my magic wand and selected the black edge of the film (i had picked a neg strip where the image inside was white against the black film edge). I held the shift key and added the white text and numbers to my selection. I then inversed my selection so the only thing selected was the inside of the three images. I saved my selection, select - save selection and labeled it "edge", then saved my image to my desktop.
I then opened a new window and made it the exact same size as my film strip image, with a transparent background.
I did a full selection of my film strip image and while holding the shift key down i dragged it onto this new file.
I then went under select - load selection and navigated to my saved image, under channel i chose "edge" which i had saved before.
Now, with the inside of the three images selected on my top layer i hit the delete key, which showed through to my transparent layer underneath. Then deselect.
I then opened my three images that i wanted to place in the holes of my film strip and sized them to fit. I dragged them over and placed them in between my two existing layers. This let them go under the film strip edge. I moved them into place, sharpened them individually, and flattened my file so i could save as a jpeg.
I also scanned a 36 exposure roll of slide film that i have an idea of how to play with.
That will be coming soon.

lucis art again

Its been some time since my last lucis art post.
I was testing out my cameras auto face detect focus on continuous low drive tonight as my daughter ran along the sidewalk.
It did an alright job but i think i had it set wrong. I kept the camera pretty steady and held my shutter button down.
I opened up the six or so photos and then placed them all into one image so i had the six seperate photos as six layers.
I highlighted all the layers and used edit - auto align layers. I then created a mask on the layers so that only she showed through to the background beneath. I flattened the image when the masking was done and desaturated it.
Just so she would like the shot even more i ran it through the lucis art plug in and set the strength to about 75.

square format

The sun was going down last night and the neighborhood was alive with kids on skateboards. I put a 50mm lens on and ran out into the street with the motor drive on high (kidding, but close).
I tried converting to black and white by taking the saturation slider all the way down in camera raw and then did a curve on the open file to boost up the contrast, blacks mainly as they were weak.
I then tried a crop to square (i used to use a hasselblad in the old days and love the square format) and applied a 15 pixel black stroke (select all, then edit - stroke).

team photo

A team photo, but wheres the team???
Just a note before i get started, this could be a long complicated post, you may want to click the back button.
I have done this hockey team photo as long as i can remember. Each year, with digital and photoshop, i change the way i do it just enough to keep it interesting for me. While standing on a chair at center ice waiting to fall i decided to photograph the background scene with no bodies in the shot and no strobes turned on (available light).
I always have a problem with my strobes showing up in the glass behind them (see next photo) and i have to carefully retouch them out which is a pain. Not this year.

This is the team shot with two strobes bounced into umbrellas, basic copy light really. You can see what it does to the glass behind their heads.
I started by opening the above two photos in camera raw and adjusting the colors and white balance until they looked similar.
I opened the files in photoshop and then placed the team shot on top of the chairs shot by using the move tool and holding the shift key down and dragging it over. I then highlighted both layers and went under edit - auto align layers. I was hand holding the camera and the auto align function works great almost every time. I then added a layer mask to the top layer (team) and using the paint brush painted in black over the background glass (over everything from the top of the boards up). this allowed the underlying layer to show through, hard part was going around their heads but it worked in the end.
After this was done i retouched all the lines and text off the front part of the ice using the clone tool.
If you look closely at the photo above you will notice a player missing on the right side. He was absent so we left a space for him in the exact same spot he stood last year. I did a rough selection on him from the last years photo with the lasso tool and drug him onto the new team. I used the edit - transform - scale function to size him up a bit as i must have been zoomed out more last year. Note to hold down the shift key when you do this as to constrain the proportions.
I then applied a layer mask to his layer and painted in black over everything i didn't want to show (since i did a rough selection). It turned out that his shirt did not come down far enough as there was a head in front of him last year so i had to make a selection of one of the other players jersey (lower part) and drag that over and blend it in to fill the gap.
Once he looked good i flattened the file (saved it first of course) and duplicated my background layer. I went under edit - transform - flip vertical and moved the layer down to place it where a reflection would be on the ice. I had to rotate it a bit (edit - transform - rotate) to line it up and then i added yet another layer mask to this layer. I painted over everything above their feet with black on the mask and then went around the bottom edges with a lower opacity on the brush (just to fade the reflection into the ice).
I then drug the logo over from last years photo ( i just squed it and lowered the opacity last year).
I flattened the file and sharpened and cropped and, whew, was done.
All this only took 4 hours.
Below is the final result.

new camera

I did the upgrade from the d300 to the 700 today and all i can say is wow.
So far i am extremely impressed. I have been shooting uncompressed raw files at 14 bit and they are tack sharp.
I would definately say that this is a camera that i could keep for a long time, or until a new one comes out (joke).
For this photo i took two seperate images, one focused on the d700 letters and one focused on the nikon letters.
I opened both in camera raw and had some fun with the settings, and drug the saturation down to -100.
I opened them in photoshop and placed one on top of the other. I then went into the layers palate and highlighted both layers (alt key I think and click on the layers to select them). Then go to edit - auto align layers. I use this often as it works very well, like in a group photo that half the people blink - just align the layers and use a mask..
then i applied a layer mask to the top layer and painted in black over the d700 letters to show through to the sharp ones underneath. I flattened the layers and sharpened the file quite a bit so i could see some good sized grain.
This image was shot at 3200asa.

off for the weekend

I took this shot the other day by absolute happen chance as i was shooting something else and i heard the flock coming.
I thought it was fitting as i am "flying out of the office" to start the weekend.

quarterback

Here is one more using the same method that i talk about in my last post.
I also added a .2 inch white border (canvas size) and a .1 inch black.

quad with masks

I took some photos today of my sons first ever game of football.
He did a quarterback keep play and since i had put my camera on high speed drive i managed to capture about 10 frames of the run. I opened up the sequence i wanted to play with and then changed their image size to 12 inches wide and 72 dpi (mainly because i was playing with them to put up on this blog). I then created a new canvas that would fit all the photos (25 x 16 at 72 dpi). I placed guides on the canvas, by using my move tool and draging the guide out from the rulers, so i could know where the center of the canvas was located. I place all 4 photos on this new canvas and moved them around until i had them where i wanted them. I flattened the layer and was just about to save it when i thought i might try making him color and the rest black and white. I duplicated my background layer and went to edit - adjustments - desaturate. I then applied a layer mask to this new black and white layer. All I had to do now is grab my paint brush and paint in black over him which allowed the color layer underneath to show through. I used a smaller brush and painted in white on the parts that i overpainted.
I lastly went to saturation and bumped it up by +12 to bring up the color in him a bit.
One note: If you try this, try to work with a higher res file. When i zoomed in on the image and was painting my mask, the edges were all jagged because my images were low res.

team jump

I did a team photo a couple days ago and when it was all over and the girls were walking across the field some unknown voice yelled "can we do a jumping shot"?
Of course was my answer and as soon as i saw it onscreen i knew the shot was great.
I used a 17-55mm lens zoomed to exactly 26mm. No reason for this it just looked right.
I put the camera on high speed drive and held the button down. They did the jump about 4 times but it was the very first frame that worked out best.
I posted the image mainly because i really liked it but also to state that you should always go for the spontaneous shots.
Its always those unexpected ones that end up being special.
Thanks to the girls for giving me permission to post this photo.

highlight vs shadow

Ok, last image for tonight as i have to get to bed.
I just wanted to show one more image from the d700. Pathethic isnt it how i am talking myself into it.
Anyway, this image shows one side of the street in full sun and the other in shade. In the full res photo i can see detail in everything on either side of the street. Nothing seems to block up except under the cars.

3200 iso

Thought i would post one more image from the d700.
This one was shot at 3200 iso hand held with available light and using the 24-85 lens zoomed in to 85.

nikon d700

I have been trying to decide whether to upgrade from my d300 to the d700 and finally got a chance today to test one out.
My first thought was that i would not upgrade but keep the 300 and purchase a new lens instead. We all know how much they cost. In looking at the lenses though, the only one i really liked was the 17-55 f2.8. That of course is a dx lens. My thinking is that investing a pile of money in dx would now be a waste with nikon now bringing out an affordable full frame camera. My next body would definately be full frame and the lens would just not do.
So where my head is now is in the 700 and throwing a 28-85 f2.8-3.5 lens on it. The lens is $669 and would get me by until i could find some more money for another lens.
I tested the 700 out and i was definately impressed. Much more than i thought i would be. This shot of the bike, left side is full frame and the right side is a crop of the left. It is at 200asa and shot with the 24-85 lens set at 24.
I tested it out at higher iso's also. 6400 was fairly grainy, no color noise though, but I would feel comfortable shooting at 3200 no problem.

room blending

I had to get a couple room shots ready for a local hotel and spent way too long last night working on them.
I shot all ambient light and bracketed both rooms over 7 exposures.
I chose the best overall exposure and then drug the other exposures on to it to create a file with about 3 layers, i did not use all the exposures. For example in the above photo i used one exposure for the crowd, one for the stage and screens, and one for the red lights on the curtains. I used layer masks to hide or reveal the parts of each layer that were the proper exposure. It all blended in quite nicely. I used a tripod while shooting as i knew i would be doing this later.
I also tried the images in photomatix but was not happy with the results.

This was the second room i did and i basically did the same thing as i did in the above photo. One exposure was the tables, one the screens, and one was the walls and ceiling. I even masked the table candles to a darker exposure on a layer underneath.

photo borders

This is just a quick post on how to create a nice clean border quickly.
I applied this to a high res, full frame image from my d300, just to give you some sizing background.
I used image-canvas size and entered .3 in the height and width box. I had clicked on the relative box before (this just means that you can punch in a number and that will be the size the canvas is extended) and chose white for color. I now have a .15 white border all around my image. I hit ok and then opened it up again. This time i entered .1 in the two boxes and chose black for the color.

For this image i used canvas size once again but this time i clicked on the center bottom arrow in the canvas size dialogue box. This means that only the top and two sides will be extended, not the bottom. I entered .3 for the height and .6 for the width. I chose black for color. I then opened it up again and clicked on the center top arrow. I entered 1.5 in the height box and left the width empty. I now have a .3 border on the top and two sides and a 1.5 border on the bottom. I used my text tool , lowered the opacity of the text layer a bit so it blends in and was done.
If you do this often i would suggest creating an action, then you just have to hit a button.
I did the wonky color on purpose here by the way.
Just trying something different.

group retouching

The above photo is one i did recently for a recent co-workers fathers 80th birthday.
They were having supper with the entire family at a local hotel and wanted a group shot taken before they went in to eat.
The lobby was crazy busy so i set up two strobes in an upstairs spot overlooking the top of the main lobby. It was the only spot available and although i was not entirely happy with it i had no choice.
This top photo was straight out of the camera (cropped is all).

This is the retouched image. I started by retouching out all the distracting elements, like sprinklers, ceiling vents, people and wall plaques in background, and of course the oh so huge pillar just behind the group. For all of this i used a combination of the clone stamp and the healing tool. I usually try to clone first and then blend in the results with the heal tool.
I also wanted the family to stand out more than the background so i duplicated the background layer and applied a gaussian blur of about 2.5. I then used a layer mask and painted in black over the family so the underlying layer would show through leaving only the background of the image blurred.
I also used the liquify filter on the lady sitting on the arm of the chair to the right of center. I had placed her there and it may not have ended up being the most flattering of poses for her as her tummy was all bunched up. I tucked it in a bit as well as her arm. I sharpened the image and applied a curve for color. Not sure if i like the color curve now or not. May be a bit green. I stared at my monitor all day and i think this can hamper your color correcting abilities.
One more note on the retouching. I used the square marquee selection tool on the left side of the circle on the ceiling as the right side was hidden by the pillar. I then hit edit-copy and paste. I then went to edit-transform-flip horizontal and drug the copy to the right side of the circle.

One of the ladies told everyone to wear white, which i cringed at when i saw it initially.
I thought if i converted it to black and white it may become more balanced and subdue the pattern in the carpet a bit.
This shoot was a prime example for me that the shoot is only half of the job. I spent a good part of my evening preparing it in photoshop. Remember this when quoting on a job.

adjusting the background

I took this photo tonight of one of my neighbors.
She did a bit of modeling on the sidewalk and i managed to snap off 63 frames.
I had a fairly shallow depth of field ( i think about f4) and i used a 200 lens for compression.
Once in photoshop i wanted to see if the background would look better if i blurred it a bit more.
I duplicated my background layer and then hid my top layer (background copy). I applied a gaussian blur of about 20% to the background layer. I turned the top layer back on and applied a layer mask to it which i then filled in with black. Then i painted in white with the paint brush where i wanted the blur on the underlying layer to show through (the whole background in this case).
This left me with a mask of a white background and the girl in black. To make her stand out a bit more i went to adjustments - hue/saturation and desaturated the background layer (only affecting the background because of the mask) and desaturated a bit, mabey 25%, cant remember now.
I then clicked on the top layer (will affect the girl only because of the mask) and added about 15% saturation to give her more color.
I sharpened the file, flattened it and was done.
One thing i noticed is that you can really tell how close your mask is to your subject if you take the saturation of the background layer all the way down. If you missed a spot or if you just didnt get close enough then you will see it clearly. Just cancel out of hue/saturation if this is the case and paint some more in white where you missed the first time.
One thing i notice about the photo after looking at it again is i find it fairly flat. I am not happy with my color and contrast adjustments i did in camera raw.

lobster shanty

This is another pano from my PEI trip.
This is where we stayed with our soccer team.
Only advice is dont eat there.

football portrait

My son got his football gear tonight and a portrait was in order.
I set up a sb flash behind him and one to camera right at about 45 degrees. Both were pointed directly at him and on manual.
The image to the right is what came out of the camera.
The image to the left was achieved by first opening the image in camera raw and opening into photoshop as is.
I then opened the image into camera raw again and took the vibrance, clarity, fill light, recovery, and contrast to 100 percent.
I then took the saturation to 0, making it black and white.
I adjusted the exposure and blacks to get the photo looking how i wanted.
I opened it and then placed the original color image on top of the black and white image.
So now i have one image opened with the color top layer and the black and white bottom, or background, layer.
I clicked on the color layer to activate it and changed its blend mode to overlay.
I then took the opacity down to 62%.
I flattened the image and smart sharpened.
I then retouched the light stand using the clone tool and healing brush (just do it rough with the clone and then blend it in with the heal).
That was it.
I have two more panos in the cue for tomorrow.

another pano

As per my theme for the month, here is yet another pano.
This one went together fine.
I think i will look for a nice sky photo to strip in and i will post it again.

360 pano

I tried a 360 degree pano and here is how it turned out. The first frame i shot ended up being the center of the pano.

pano month

It looks like it might just be pano month for me. For some reason i am enjoying playing with the photomerge feature in photoshop. This is one i shot this weekend on prince edward island while on vacation. We were at a really cool beach on panmure island.
This is a 180 degree pano stripped together in photomerge. It did not do a very good job on this one and i did a bunch of masking to correct the flaws.
If you look at this one and my last pano (alley) you will notice that i have been trying to get fairly close to my subjects so the middle of the pano looks like a point.

overlay blending

I coulden't decide whether i liked this photo as it was shot or after it was run through photomatix better, so i combined the two.
I ran the image through photomatix and opened it in photoshop. I then opened the normal image and dragged the photomatix one onto it. I then duplicated the normal layer. So i now have the photomatix layer on top with two normal layers under it.
I clicked on the photomatix layer and changed the blending mode to overlay. I then merged this layer with the normal one under it. Then i lowered the opacity on this new combined layer to let the normal one under it show through until i had the look i wanted.

alley photomerge

I did a photo shoot last night of my niece and her three friends (late birthday present from me).
We were looking for some cool locations and found that in a downtown alley.
I thought i would try a pano using available light and above is the result.
The alley was about 7 feet wide and the wall your looking at is straight.
I took 5 photos hand held and shot vertically then stripped them together in photomerge.
I will be posting more images from the shoot later using 1 off camera flash.

photomatix again

I was driving to the photo lab the other day and went past this old train station.
I had the camera in the car and thought i had better get a shot of it before it got torn down.
It was midday and the shadows were fairly blocked up. I thought it would be a perfect candidate for hdr.
I took 7 bracketed frames (bracketed by 1 stop each). I choose the normal exposure, darkest , and the lightest of the 7 frames.
I put all three images into photomatix and hit generate. I kept the strength at about 90% also as i wanted the effect to be strong.
I opened the image in photoshop and applied a curve to up the contrast just a bit, sharpened a little more and was done.

bracketing exposure

This is another shot i took while out on an excellent boat cruise.
The image as you see here looks nothing like what my eye was seeing at the time. The sun was getting close to setting but was still fairly bright. I did a few bracketed exposures to darken the clouds and sun and came up with this.
When the first shot looks lame, try something else, like bracketing.

To crop or not to crop

Here is a photo of a boat i took last week for fun. I was in a friends awesome cruiser and his friend pulled up along side. We were going the same speed for a couple minutes and i thought i would take a few frames. The sun was down and as a result i did not really like the color in the image. I opened the image in camera raw and did the same adjustments to it as my last few posts to bring up the contrast and detail. I took the saturation slider to -100 and opened the image. It did not look very good yet so a dramatic curves adjustment was needed. This brought up the contrast quite a bit. I sharpened the image and that was about it.
Then comes the question to crop or not. I like the balance of the above cropped photo. You will notice that most of the action and lines are toward the center of the image and the boat itself is pretty well centered. This of course would be breaking one of the rules of better photography "dont put your subject in the center of the frame but use the rule of thirds". The boat is actually on the thirds line going across, just not up and down. The crop still works however as the top of the image and the bottom, dead space on both, are equal and balance the image. Being cropped also makes the boat occupy more space in the frame.
There is no real set rule about cropping is what it comes down to. I like to try different crops until the image works for me. It usually only takes a minute and can be very well worth the time.

vacation

I just noticed that it has been almost a month since my last post.
I have still been getting lots of visits to the site and that helps to make me feel guilty for not putting up some new info.
I have been shooting a ton of images that i will be playing with in the near future. A break was very much needed by me in all areas of my work as i was truly burnt out, thus the lack of posts to this site.
I took the photo above yesterday morning on an early walk down the beach. For the next week or so i will just post some images. I will be back to business very, very soon.
Thanks