Archives For Tutorials

Eiffel Tower in the Snow
A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in Paris on the tourist trail admiring the fabulous architecture and eating as many pastries as possible. It snowed for the entire second day of our trip, which was very pretty without causing total traffic chaos like we suffer here in the UK. However, I did notice a slight issue with snow when I got home and transferred 4GB of photos into Lightroom.

Snow. On the front element of my wide angle lens.

Now I thought I’d managed to wipe most of it off at several points in the day. But I was sorely mistaken; apparently the inside of my coat sleeve was not sufficient to mop up all the moisture from the glass on my lens. Fortunately the photos aren’t ruined, just not as technically crisp as I’d envisaged them. But they could have been a whole lot better hand I bothered to use my specific lens wiping cloth which I carry in my bag for such an occasion! D’oh.

I’m still going through my post processing, but here’s my favourite shot I grabbed with my phone to bring some visual spectacle to this post and hopfeully whet your appetite for more in the near future!

 

Posted by sboard on 23-Mar-2013 @ 13:33 In Travel, Tutorials , ,
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Festive Photography – Tips & Tricks

sboard —  19-Dec-2012 @ 12:50

Christmas is a great time of year to capture with a camera. There’s so much festive photography potential, its difficult to know where to start.

We visited the Leeds German Market a couple of weekends ago. I had a great time capturing some shots of the various wooden toys and decorations on display. I used a few different techniques for the shots I got, which I’m going to share here to hopefully encourage your own festive photography adventures!

Wide aperture

New decoration!

Using a very shallow depth of field and carefully selecting what to focus on really helps delicate decorations stand out from backgrounds.  As a bonus if there are Christmas lights behind your subject you should get some nice bokeh too!

Look for patterns

Joyeux Noël

Many of the stalls have lots and lots of figures on display and this really suits close up images which show off patterns and repetition.  If you get really really close you can fool the viewer into thinking there’s an infinite army of Santas or soldiers by filling the frame right to the edge.

Do something different

Nativity

Try to look for situations where a slightly different approach may give a unique and interesting result. For the above photo I used a slow shutter speed to capture the motion of this wooden ornament. Don’t be afraid to experiment! Thinking creatively and trying things which aren’t obvious are where the most interesting photos come from. Whether its a slower shutter speed, different view point or creative use of flash, if you can make a photo that’s entirely unique then you’ve improved as a photographer.

In How I Got the Shot, Tutorials
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Rome HDR

Natural HDR using Photomatix and Lightroom

sboard —  13-Aug-2012 @ 11:23

I saw Matt Kloskowski talk about how to use Photoshop and Lightroom together for HDR editing and wondered if you could do the same thing with Photomatix.

Well it turns out you can!  So in this post I’m going to demonstrate how to take a set of bracketed photos and turn them into an awesome realistic HDR image using just Photomatix and Lightroom.

You may wonder why not just use Photomatix for HDR since it’s specifically designed for the purpose?  But if you are particularly used to Lightroom or want a more subtle HDR look this method will give you more control of your image, using an already familiar interface.

First open Lightroom and select the bracketed exposures you want to combine.  I’ve chosen some shots from my recent trip to Rome.

2012-07-08_18h01_11
Next right click (command click on Mac) and select “Edit In -> Photomatix”.  Unless you have altered the images in Lightroom select “Edit Original” making sure your file format is TIFF and Bit Depth is 16 bits/component.
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Select “Merge for HDR Processing” and then you will see the dialogue box below.  Ensure that the option for “Show intermediary 32-bit HDR image” is selected and push OK and select your normal preprocessing options (align, remove ghosting, reduce noise and reduce chromatic aberrations).
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Once Photomatix has processed the files go to “File -> Save As” and save the file as a 32-bit TIFF
Now re-import the photo into your Lightroom catalogue and open it in the Develop tab and edit your photo as normal.  However, because you’re using a 32 bit tiff containing a HUGE amount of data you can push the sliders to extreme values and still retain a large amount of detail.
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The settings I’ve found most useful are Clarity and Vibrance, which along with altering the Whites and Blacks give your image the HDR edge whilst retaining a natural look.
And this is the sort of effect you end up with; it’s a bit less dramatic than typical HDR but still gives a good dynamic range and contrast not possible in a single exposure.
Rome HDR
In Tutorials , ,
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