This is a 12 shot HDR Pano (36 photos) taken at the Salton Sea. I had to try running in Photoshop 4 different times to get the photo the way that I like it. I was getting a weird bow in the horizon line. I ended up having to straighten out all 12 photos in Lightroom, then loading to Photoshop. But I think the results were worth it. What do you think?
Let’s see… I worked on this picture in Lightroom, Photomatix, and Photoshop. I made 2 layers. Desaturated the top layer. Did a high pass filter. Changed the blend mode to Hard Light. Tweaked in Topaz Detail, Topaz Adjust, and Viveza 2. And it is a picture of bird poop.
I would think that if ever there was a time when doing a more artistic interpretation of a photograph made sense, thiswould be it. When better to convert to a painting, then when shooting a painter in his environment? Yet, I’ve never come to terms in my own mind with something like this. Is it appropriate to go over the top like this? What do you think? It would really help me out if you could comment (either on the site or on Twitter.)
Used Topaz Simplify, then Topaz Adjust.
I recently lost my point & shoot. It was a nice little Nikon Coolpix. Not what I’d pick today but it was OK. I looked back at a Pano I took with it (yes a P&S Pano) in January. And thought I should publish it in memory of my little camera.
I worked this shot for hours in the computer. Started out doing an HDR. I wasn’t quite happy with the results. Seemed to introduce too much noise in the photo. I tried using Dfine and DxO to remove the noise and it was still there. I thought that if a sharpened everything but the noise it would make it less visible. Finally gave up and just took the dark & light raw files into Photoshop as layers. Added a mask & used the gradient tool to show some of each layer. Oh, I did use Viveza 2 to brighten the tower.
Another shot taken at Wind and Sea Beach. It is possible to take multi shot HDR’s with people in them. You can either layer a single file to the HDR and mask in the person without movement. Or you can yell “hold still for a minute.” That’s what I did this time.
I’ve been in San Diego for a long time now. How the heck did I never go to Bird Rock (Wind And Sea Beach)? Beautiful place, and the weather there was great. Right after a downpour.
Photo tip. Did a 3 shot HDR. To correct for the moving bird, I took the darkest shot and added it as a layer. Then Idid a mask to bring back the bird from that shot only.
Actually it’s back to the same photo. I looked at yesterdays post on a different monitor and decided that I had gotten a little carried away with the grunge look. Seemed like a good idea for a prison shot. But I think I may have gone too far. Here is the same shot toned down a bit.
So 2 different Hanging Tree posts have given me the bug to go over my Chaos stuff. (Something about a little chaos that compliments the beauty of landscapes.) Anyway, what chaos would be better after Hanging Tress then a prison? I visited Eastern State Prison in Philly a while back. (In fact, I was late for the last tour and had to do some major begging just to get in.) The place is amazing if you like chaos (and I do.)
Yesterday I published a photo taken of a Hanging Tree outside of Jerome AZ. This one was taken in the Mojave desert on the way to Vegas. This one is an HDR with some Topaz Adjust.
