Dodge and Burn

So I was looking for an image to post recently and came upon this photo in my archives. It was an un-edited HDR straight out of photmatix. Taken in the Black Canyon of the Gunneson in Colorado, it is your typical HDR. Sky was bright, foreground was dark, why not do HDR. The problem with this is that sometimes you get a very flat image with HDR. Sometimes you get a very 3 dimensional image. It's always different. I have this beautiful light on this rock face but its not simple enough. There is too much going on with the rocks and it all looks like its on one plane. 

I wanted to create some separation of this close rock face from the far ones on the right. So I use a little dodging and burning. Now, I personally do not use the dodge/burn tool in photoshop, I use a different method. I will make a copy of the layer I am working on, and fill it with 50% grey. I then change the blending style to "Overlay". You will now be looking at the same picture you had before. Without going into all the details, Overlay basically increases contrast. Now to darken areas, paint with black. To lighten areas, paint with white. Any pixel brighter/darker than 50% grey will be lightened/darkened. This way skips the highlights/midtones/shadows boxes and is easier to use, and I think looks better. It also doesn't keep changing it as you hold the button down, to give you more precise control.

Anyway, brighten the area you want attention on (your eye is drawn to the highlights in an image) and darken the areas around it. Using this method, I made the close rock face more prominent and the right side less so. you can see in the side by side that the bottom half looks more appealing. Now, this isn't an award winning photo but I just wanted one that would show this effect well.

Star Trails at the Farm

So, this is my first foray into doing star trails with multiple exposures. I set out to do about ~6 hrs worth of 30 sec exposures. I set it up, then walked away and went to bed. Well.... After about 120, the lens fogged/froze and the rest were blurry. I also realized my software cannot handle more than 395 images. I shot about 900. So now I know to pick a warmer night and expose longer for each image. For this I used a program called "Startrails" which stitches them together automatically.

Crescent Moon

Did you see the awesome crescent moon tonight at sunset?

Executive Catering Teaser

Here is a teaser from the Executive Catering shoot today. The best thing about shooting food is that you get to eat it at the end. If that's not reason enough to stick around and shoot it all, I don't know what is.

Cape May Point

A quick HDR I did from Cape May Point State Park while I was waiting to shoot the stars behind the bunker.

Lunar Bunker

I knew the Russians were building a base on the dark side of the moon. Click on the satellite image for a higher-res picture, It looks great full size.

This actually is the WWII ammunition bunker at Cape May Point State Park. Was out last night shooting in the freezing cold, but it was worth it. Shooting in the winter let's you get clearer shots of the stars, less moisture in the air. It used to be underground, but you know with the ocean and all, things don't stay the same.

HDR Tutorial

It's finally here! I've been spending the last week writing a full tutorial on my HDR processing. Check it out for tips on capturing the images, processing in Photomatix Pro, and then finishing it off in photoshop! Check it out and tell me what you think. If you take a couple suggestions let me see what you come up with, put a link up in the comments and let me check it out.

Mike's HDR Tutorial