Red Shutters

Yes, I did take a slight hiatus from posting to my Blog.  As a single dad my daughter who is about to turn 13 came before anything else.  Now with her being close to grown, or at least that is how it seems I have gotten back to producing new images and re-editing to older ones for fun.

This is from a series of images I originally photographed in Vietnam in 2006 and recently have re-edited to produce a more abstract image as the final result.

The image has ten layers using various blend modes to come up with this result.

It is titled Red Shutters.  

INTERIORS WITH HDR THAT LOOK REAL

On a trip to stay in the mountains of Georgia a few weeks ago I promised my sister I would do a couple of interior photographs to show the new look of the main room to help her rent the cabin.

I decided to do it with multiple exposures and blend them later rather than taking the time to light the rooms which I am not a fan of and honestly think unless you have a crew with you requires too many lights and then can look lit.

I photographed nine different exposures of each angle and then blended them in NIK HDR EFX Pro 2.  It was my first time to use their HDR application and I have to say I was very impressed with overall ease of use and the results.

Below are two images with a couple of exposures of each I pulled to show the best exposures I could produce in a single photograph for either the lit side of the room of the side of the room in shadow and what I was able to produce with NIK. 

After blending the seven exposures I then cut out and pasted the fire from one of the exposures and put it into the final HDR image using the transform tool and blending it normal at about 80%.  You have to play with the blending a bit so that it matches the rest of the photograph but usually 60-80% with give good results.  

The final move was to add a slight contrast curve and the results as you can see are natural and light.

New Work

Just a few new images to post. I have a new section...oddly enough titled "Latest Photography". It seems I am venturing out into a new direction for me. I have to admit I love playing with Photoshop.

I have been trying out some new ideas with ACR in my RAW processing. Then working on some added details in PS. The new section on my website has about 20 or so images done this way...well more or less. Each image deserves and gets it's own unique process of course. That should go without saying.

Not all images respond to this in a favorable manor, meaning some images just plain old suck done this way.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A quick Merry Christmas to all with a little Photoshop help.

You Suck at Photoshop #5: Select Color Range

If you haven't seen any of these videos let me just say they are FUNNY.

Whether you know the process covered or not you will get a laugh watching Donnie walk you through various Photoshop techniques.

I think there are a series of 20, all funny and for those new to Photoshop informative.