A shot created by moving my camera during exposure.
If you squint, you might be able to make out Chihuly’s work 🙂
These “scorpion tails” are all over the garden but I have yet
to get a shot I’m happy with so I usually end up experimenting
with filters. Here I played with Framing Pear’s Mr. Contrast.
Tag Archives: photoshop
chihuly boat
Trying to capture Chihuly’s glass creations in the outdoors is really tough
but with a little help from the digital darkroom, I get the shot I want.
chihuly challenge
I checked out the Chihuly exhibit yesterday morning and was reminded that a nice sunny day is not a time to shoot glass! An overcast day or early evening when the light is lower and more even is best. Since the show is here until May, I have plenty of time to get the shots I want. In the meantime, I used Photoshop to make the best of what I liked yesterday.
share the trails
Hiking in the Brown’s Ranch area of the Preserve yesterday afternoon, a photographer friend spots a Tarantula. He suggests I put Chris in the photo too. So I did 🙂
photomatix phun
Another high dynamic composite (HDR) shot from Tlaquepaque….this time a little stronger tonemapping. If you like creating artsy stuff from your images and your budget can handle $99, then I highly recommend Photomatix Pro. (I’m playing lately because I am giving a presentation on the program at my digital group next month).
helicon focus
I used Helicon Focus to blend 7 images that were focused gradually from front to back. The software works pretty well but does need some tweaking sometimes.
coloring book
I finished the coloring book this afternoon and realized I forgot to post an image today. So here is a small look at the completed pages. Counting adjustment layers, I created more than 50 layers for the cover. They saved me a few times during the process!
LR2…Love part two
I still use Photoshop but Lightroom takes me over there. Here’s a shot of the options. Being able to load multiple image as layers is pretty darn cool! I create my masterpiece in Photoshop and then click “save”. No need to click “save as” because Lightroom2 is doing the saving for you. It will then save a copy and stack it (in the catalog) with your original.
For those who still wonder why you would want Lightroom2…..A big advantage is the space you save on your hard drive. If you save a Photoshop file with adjustment layers, you are creating a new file in addition to your original which can fill up your hard drive quickly. Lightroom adjustments are just EXIF taking hardly any room but having the same infinite editing control as adjustment layers.
The main reason I bought Lightroom1 when it first came out, though, was to be able to create a database. What is a database? It’s a visual catalog of all your images that you can view whether you’re connected to the drive with the images or not. Lightroom2 even tells you if you’re connected to the images and if not, tells you which drive they are located on. It creates proxies in a size that you determine. That means I could bring my catalog file to DIG, open it on anyone’s computer that has Lightroom2 installed and we could then see a copy of all the images on my computer at home.
If these things aren’t important to you, then Photoshop and Bridge will work for you.
echinocereus
The common name is Hedgehog but this is not the local native so I have no idea what color or how large the bloom will be. I’m guessing it will be something showy but of course I’ll post a photo of whatever it is when it shows up.
lightroom 2
I told myself I wouldn’t but after watching the video tutorials on the NAPP website, I upgraded to Lightroom 2 yesterday. One word….WOW! The first thing I fell in love with is being able to use both my monitors which means I have the light table open on one monitor while having a huge preview on the other (as shown above).
There are so many more really cool features that I haven’t tried yet. If they work, I’ll be using Lightroom for much more than just archiving now. By the way, I’m guessing that the new Bridge will probably have some of these new features too.