The RAW Deal: A Day In The Life Of A DSLR (A Photography Dynasty)

[Lorena]

Thanks Bonegavel for posting the Interesting photographic technique thread as we went back and forth on digital vs. film photography and to wade moore for the motivation to start a photography dynasty thread.

I've had a total of 3 cameras: 2 Minoltas (I can't remember what they were) and my beloved Canon EOS 10D. You can look at the body HERE (Canon Website) or HERE (Amazon.com). Antmeister and I went back and forth on what type of camera to buy. I wanted a traditional SLR and he wanted a Digital SLR. Like a lot of people, I was a bit nervous with the new technology because I wasn't familiar with it but after a week of disagreements, I finally caved in to the *dark side*.

So there's the backstory. Follow my adventure as I strive to become better at post processing and most importantly, a better photographer. Antmeister is awesome in the digital darkroom and if I can have 1/10th of his experience, it'll make it all worthwile.

Thanks for sticking around, 'til next time.

[Lorena]

I'm my own worst critic. I took several pictures today and was dissapointed when they were downloaded on my computer; a lot of them were blurry! I should have changed the settings so I had everything in focus... ugh. Now I have a whole bunch of blurry images

This was one of my favorite pictures but while I was doing the post processing, Antmeister noticed that I had areas that were pure white. Dammit, no burning could help there

So, what did I learn? I learned that you MUST avoid taking pictures with an overexposed white background because well, you're pretty screwed... no matter how much you burn those areas, they remain white. How do you know something is true white? Click on the eye dropper and point it to any white areas, if you have 255 in the R, G, and B setting under Info Palette, you have pure white and no matter how much you burn, that section stays white. Freaking A man... I was a bit upset.

Oh, the info palette looks like this:



So this is to help me remember WHAT NOT TO DO!! Next time, I'll position her or myself differently so this doesn't happen again.

Here's are the pics (before and after):

BEFORE:

AFTER:

[Lorena]

dola,

In case anyone is wondering what I did post processing, I gave the image a soft glow, removed some minor impefections, and burned her shirt a little bit to bring out more color.

[Lorena]

Larissa (our 5 year old) and I went to the library today and I was planning on taking pictures outside of it when whoooosh... the rain came out of nowhere! So I had to scratch that idea. That's definitely something I'll be doing later though.

Since it rained/sprinkled most of the day, I was very hesitant on taking my camera out. Shoot, sometimes I treat it as though it's a baby. "Larissa... DON'T TOUCH MY CAMERA!!", "Larissa, if you're gonna take pictures, make sure you put the strap around your neck because I don't want it falling on the ground", yadda, yadda, yadda. I was really careless with my other cameras... banging them against the car, chairs, just about everything I got close to.

We get home and it's still pouring... dang. I grabbed my camera and book bags, grabbed Larissa's hands and dashed to our apartment... soaked. Antmeister checked the camera and it was safe... ahh... sigh of relief.

I changed clothes and my camera and I took a little walk around our apartment complex. It was still sprinkling so I took only 5 pictures... I didn't want my poor baby to get wet. The pictures turned out pretty decent. I forgot about the whiteness of the sky so most of them were a little blown out. It'll sink in one day I'm sure.

This picture was right outside our apartment shortly after the downpour.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



So what processing was involved in the "darkroom":

Adjusted brightness pre-Photoshop
Sharpening
Burning and doging
Some "LAB" coloring

Antmeister has been very supportive throughout my project and sits next to me offering advice and giving suggestions on different ways to do the same thing which I totally appreciate.

For more on LAB, check out Amazon.com

Hasta manana everyone!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Question (from someone who knows zilch about photography) ... in the backyard picture, the fence at the back looks very blue to me, as opposed to a more brown look to the fence on the left. Are they actually that differently colored or is that something caused by the retouching?

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Question (from someone who knows zilch about photography) ... in the backyard picture, the fence at the back looks very blue to me, as opposed to a more brown look to the fence on the left. Are they actually that differently colored or is that something caused by the retouching?

The colors aren't that different actually. I probably "burned" (darken the pixels) one section once, but burned it twice on another section, thus giving it the bluish color.

[MacroGuru]

Awesome Dynasty, I meant to post say so when you started it...the Digital SLR is my next major purchase (Well, besides our home that we are looking for)

I am big time into photography and trying things with my camera, but it isn't anything compared to yours.....

[Lorena]

7/2/06

Just my luck, as Larissa and I grab the camera and head out the door, I can feel it sprinkling again. I take a few pictures in 10 minutes and came home. To my dismay, they're blurry... again. I gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong and correct it.

Well, after uploading the images on Ant's computer our daughter wanted to play on our porch. There are 3 ways to get access to the porch: master bedroom, 2nd bedroom, and living room. We decided to go through the second bedroom and as soon as we got out, we noticed a couple hornets so we ran in. I decided to look on top of our screen door and holy crap... there's a hornets nest between the glass door and the screen door!!! WTF?! Two hornets entered our kid's room so I told everyone to get the hell out, grabbed my chancla (flip-flop in spanish) and smashed them. I called Antmeister to look at our unwelcomed guests and he was a bit fascinated actually. Anyway, we decided this would be a good photo-op so we grabbed the tripod and a 70-300 mm lens and started taking pictures.

I can't take credit for this picture, it might have been me, or Ant, but nonetheless, here it is:

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post processing:

Dodge - to brighten the nest
Sharpen - to improve the bluriness a bit
Hue/Saturation - to make the colors pop
Levels - to adjust the brightness

I noticed it's 12:29am our time, so technically, I missed a day. I'll have to start posting these images earlier.

Later on.

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

7/2/06

Just my luck, as Larissa and I grab the camera and head out the door, I can feel it sprinkling again. I take a few pictures in 10 minutes and came home. To my dismay, they're blurry... again. I gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong and correct it.

Well, after uploading the images on Ant's computer our daughter wanted to play on our porch. There are 3 ways to get access to the porch: master bedroom, 2nd bedroom, and living room. We decided to go through the second bedroom and as soon as we got out, we noticed a couple hornets so we ran in. I decided to look on top of our screen door and holy crap... there's a hornets nest between the glass door and the screen door!!! WTF?! Two hornets entered our kid's room so I told everyone to get the hell out, grabbed my chancla (flip-flop in spanish) and smashed them. I called Antmeister to look at our unwelcomed guests and he was a bit fascinated actually. Anyway, we decided this would be a good photo-op so we grabbed the tripod and a 70-300 mm lens and started taking pictures.

I can't take credit for this picture, it might have been me, or Ant, but nonetheless, here it is:

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post processing:

Dodge - to brighten the nest
Sharpen - to improve the bluriness a bit
Hue/Saturation - to make the colors pop
Levels - to adjust the brightness

I noticed it's 12:29am our time, so technically, I missed a day. I'll have to start posting these images earlier.

Later on.

I love this shot!

[wade moore]

First Note: You've convinced me that I REALLY need to learn post-processing on the PC... of course, I really need a DSLR too... *sigh*...

Second Note: I hope you're willing to take suggestions here ... On the picture of Larissa in the blue-shirt where you were concerned about the "pure-white" Do you know what you were metering off of? If you were metering off of a dark color (i.e. the leaf) that would tend to give you the pure-white also. When taking a shot, particularly in the bright sunlight, I always try to make sure I'm metering off of a medium color (i.e. her shirt) when I can in order to bring out the biggest range of colors.

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

I love this shot!

Thanks! We must have taken about 8 pictures to get this one.

Originally Posted by wade moore

First Note: You've convinced me that I REALLY need to learn post-processing on the PC... of course, I really need a DSLR too... *sigh*...

I'm glad the before and after have made you come to that conclusion. Isn't technology amazing? I don't think we could get this same effect if we were in an old-fashioned darkroom.

Originally Posted by wade moore

Second Note: I hope you're willing to take suggestions here ... On the picture of Larissa in the blue-shirt where you were concerned about the "pure-white" Do you know what you were metering off of? If you were metering off of a dark color (i.e. the leaf) that would tend to give you the pure-white also. When taking a shot, particularly in the bright sunlight, I always try to make sure I'm metering off of a medium color (i.e. her shirt) when I can in order to bring out the biggest range of colors.

Not at all!! On the contrary, *please* do! I have taken a couple beginning courses so I'm not quite where I want to be yet. Any suggestions/comments you have about my pictures will help me grow and learn, so go ahead, I welcome them

BTW wade, where's your dynasty? I would love to see your pictures; I'm sure I can learn a thing or 2 by reading your posts and looking at your images.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

BTW wade, where's your dynasty? I would love to see your pictures; I'm sure I can learn a thing or 2 by reading your posts and looking at your images.

I know, I know ... I was thinking about running out right now and take a few quickies actually, you have inspired me ... Biggest problem being that without the DSLR I either use my little Powershot (meh) or I have to wait until I finish a role, process, and get it on the PC...

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by wade moore

I know, I know ... I was thinking about running out right now and take a few quickies actually, you have inspired me

No sir, you inspired me by mentioning it on Bonegavel's thread. It was something I thought of doing for the longest time and the mere mention of it gave me the kick I needed.

Originally Posted by wade moore

Biggest problem being that without the DSLR I either use my little Powershot (meh) or I have to wait until I finish a role, process, and get it on the PC...

Ahh yes, the good 'ol days when we had to finish a roll, develop the film and scan it to get it online.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Ahh yes, the good 'ol days when we had to finish a roll, develop the film and scan it to get it online.

I think what I'm going to do is have them developed on CD and see what the quality looks like there.. I'm never happy with scanning prints and I just don't really want to put the money out for a negative scanner when I'm looking and an EOS XT camera body is about the same price .

[Lorena]

07/03/2006

So today we had to go to the post office. I looked for the closest post office using Yahoo Yellow Pages and found 2. We looked for the closest one and didn't find it, so we went with option #2. We passed the turn and ended up on Springwood Drive, way the hell off. So we make a u-turn and finally saw signs, showing us how to get there. We find this dinky little shop with a sign that says "Post Office" at the top. It was right next to some railroad tracks so I got out and started snapping away. I was gonna post the post office pic, but didn't like it much; that will be another day.

Anyway, here is the before and after of the railroad:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Not my favorite picture in the world because it's very slanted, but if I cropped it, I would lose the long railroad and have the building in the background right smack in the middle... a no-no in photography.

Post Processing:

LAB Stuff
Sharpen
Hue Saturation
Levels...

the usual stuff.

We have the book How to Wow : Photoshop for Photography and used one of the techniques today. Lots of useful hints I'll be looking through it often.

So there's today's image, thanks for viewing and please feel free to comment on my images k?

[wade moore]

Nice clouds... the more I take pictures, the more I learn that with bad clouds, there's no point in taking landscapes...


My opinion, the post-photoshop picture washes out the detail of the sign too much, but besides that I actually kind of like the angle...

[Wolfpack]

Neat dynasty. I'm a bit of an amateur photographer myself and especially like doing landscapes. However, I've never really figured out the digital darkroom like I should. I can see the examples in the book and they always say do this or do that until it "looks right". I suppose it's the computer programmer in me who craves things to be logical and therefore structured and defined when it comes to what I should be doing, rather than doing things in "skoshes" or "hairs" or whatever. I can look at something in Photoshop Elements forever and still not be sure whether I've done it right or not (of course, I can see when I mess up... ).

At any rate, your last image was pretty good, but maybe a little too much on the ethereal side of things. The tracks themselves look quite alright, but the slight fuzziness and brightness of the distant objects like the sign and the buildings seem incongruous with the subject matter. Railroads are by nature generally dirty, grungy places. At least to me. It doesn't seem quite...real enough somehow. It could be the compression for web delivery had something to do with that. Images crunched down to web jpgs tend to lose something in the fine details.

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I can see the examples in the book and they always say do this or do that until it "looks right". I suppose it's the computer programmer in me who craves things to be logical and therefore structured and defined when it comes to what I should be doing, rather than doing things in "skoshes" or "hairs" or whatever. I can look at something in Photoshop Elements forever and still not be sure whether I've done it right or not (of course, I can see when I mess up... ).

You just described me. I like to know what exact settings look good and when the book says, "keep adjusting until you get the desired effect", well, I feel stumped. We used a glow and per the book, the typical settings are between 5-50. Well, that's quite a range and for someone like me that's not quite used to the darkroom yet. Every picture is an experience but it's like, how much is too much? How much is too little?

Thanks for the comments wade and Wolfpack.

[Lorena]

07/04/06

As I drove around the neighborhood on a cloudy rainy day, I stopped 1 block short of our apartment and saw a faint rainbow behind a flag. I rolled down my window and took 1 picture and came home before the downpour.

We tried different methods to make the rainbow stand out, but after many attempts, I said enough! This is what came about.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Darkroom - All I remember are lots of curves, and layers upon layers. The usual LAB, sharpening, healing, some white balance adjustments (via threshold), and dodging with a gradient.

Well, my brain cells are depleted, c-ya!

[Wolfpack]

Given where you started from, that's a marked improvement. Good effort.

[Lorena]

07/05/06

Here's Larissa blowing bubbles right outside out apartment complex. It would have made a better image if she actually blew a bubble.

BEFORE



AFTER



Post Processing:

- Changed Profile to LAB

- Added curves layer and adjusted the Lightness A & B channels to make the image pop a little more.

- Changed profile back to RGB once the curves adjustment was completed.

- Adjusted contrast using levels.

- Sharpened image (Filters --> Others --> High pass - adjusted until I saw a vague outline of the image) and changed it to Overlay.

- Dodged a little bit on the right side of her face.

- Healing brush: removed specks on her cheeks.

I was very conservative on this picture and didn't get carried away with the colors as you can see. I seem to be getting the hang of the digital darkroom but there's SO much more I need to learn.

Baby steps Lorena... baby steps.

Someday, I would like to manipulate an image to look like this:

[wade moore]

Photographing people is by far my favorite, I like this one a lot... Even though she wasn't able to blow a bubble, I'm a big fan of the detail of the bubble liquid that you can see...

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Photographing people is by far my favorite, I like this one a lot... Even though she wasn't able to blow a bubble, I'm a big fan of the detail of the bubble liquid that you can see...

Thanks wade! I'm not the biggest fan of photographing people, but it helps when I have a model that's willing to cooperate

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Thanks wade! I'm not the biggest fan of photographing people, but it helps when I have a model that's willing to cooperate

My interests in photography in order of preference..

1) Sports
2) "Artistic" candid shots of people.. (this is hard to define, but I do not mean like snapshot candids)
3) Wildlife (plant and animal)
4) Buildings
5) Landscapes
6) Posed people

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by wade moore

My interests in photography in order of preference..

1) Sports
2) "Artistic" candid shots of people.. (this is hard to define, but I do not mean like snapshot candids)
3) Wildlife (plant and animal)
4) Buildings
5) Landscapes
6) Posed people

For me:

1.) Sports photography - definitely agree with you. Sports photography is right up there, if not my most favorite thing in the world. The first time I took sports photos was at a Chargers game back in 1998 or so with my Minolta camera. The adrenaline I felt going through my body was like nothing I've ever felt before! I felt bad we only had 1 roll of film otherwise forget it!! The anticipation of a QB releasing the ball and snapping the shot *just* as the ball leaves his hand; or when a pitcher throws the ball and taking the picture as the ball leaves his fingertips... wow, just thinking about it gets me pumped up.

2.) Architecture - a building can look so different when taking shots at different angles. I have a thing for tall buildings... it's their bigness that make them quite appealing. I have yet to take a picture of The US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, but that building is impressive. It's the tallest building West of the Mississippi River. The Frost Bank Tower here in Austin has beautiful angles that make it so beautiful; at night, it looks amazing.

These are my top 2, the rest are a toss up but people is definitely last on my list. Candid shots, I don't mind because there's less planning involved.

[wade moore]

My personal opinion/advice for Sports Photography - Forget about going to NFL, MLB, etc... go to Minor Leagues, Small College games, etc... You can get MUCH better positions for taking your pictures in general... You can often get basically right up next to the field so therefore you have so many more options for what to do from a framing perspective and you're not forced to use as extreme of a zoom.

[Lorena]

07/06/06

I kinda procrastinated a bit today on my image. At around 8:00pm or so our time, I grabbed my camera and tripod and walked around the complex. This is our apt. complex's office.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post Processing:

LAB Stuff
Sharpen
Dodge the door a little bit
Blurred the Nissan truck's license plate
Hue/Saturation to make the flowers pop
Added a couple of curves layers to darken the sky and roof

I've been spending about half an hour taking pictures about triple that in post processing. There's a lot of hard work going into this but I am determined to get better and one day, I'll be able to do this on my own. So far, Antmeister has hung in there with me.

Hasta manana amigos!

[MacroGuru]

What are the better sites to read up on Post Processing?

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

What are the better sites to read up on Post Processing?

Tips from the Top Floor - They also have an excellent podcast.
http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/psc/

PhotoshopSupport.com - There are a number of tutorials here, mainly due to the fact that they are promoting their books.
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials.html

[Lorena]

07/07/06

I took a Terrel Davis powernap around 7ish and woke up around 10pm... whoops. I grabbed my camera and tripod and looked around the house for a subject. At first I grabbed a few coins but that didn't work. Antmeister suggested using a candle for lighting and took a few images but nothing popped. My Junior Assistant 5 year old Larissa came in the door and wanted to help so I asked her to push the Remote Switch button on my cue. She accidently blew the candle and we kept shooting. I asked her to push the button while I lit up the candle.

I was absolutely not gonna use this image because I thought it was lost. We played around with some post processing and finally, Antmeister said, "You know what? Have you looked at how to enchance a black and white image with the Lynda.com tutorial?" I viewed it and was thoroughly impressed with the images and tried it. WOW, that tutorial reinforced what Antmeister had been telling me all along, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A LOST IMAGE.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post Processing:

Curves Layer- for color/saturation

Levels Layer - for contrast

2 Hue/Saturation layers: saturated one layer to -100 (to remove color), and the other, adjusted the red channels for the desired effect

Screen Layer - to lighten and bring out detail

Softlight Layer - softer contrast

Overlay Layer - harsher contrast

Multiply Layer - darken overall image

Sharpen Layer - for less blur

I was really impressed. For $25.00 a month, or $250 a year, Lynda.com offers several video tutorials on Photoshop, Access, After Effects, Paint, Publisher, File Maker Pro, they have an impressive list. Check them out, it's so worth it.

Thanks for viewing and don't be shy... say hi will ya?

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

What are the better sites to read up on Post Processing?

Darn it, I should have added this site as well. He frequents the board at Tips from the Top Floor and is really good at post processing.

http://www.photowalkthrough.com/

[wade moore]

You know, I love the B&W...

But honestly, I REALLY like the original photo too - nice job!

[oliegirl]

Very cool pics DC...I especially like the candle, but like wade moore, I like the color one as well! Can't wait to see more...

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by wade moore

You know, I love the B&W...

But honestly, I REALLY like the original photo too - nice job!

Same here.

Great pics all around, Lorena!

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by wade moore

You know, I love the B&W...

But honestly, I REALLY like the original photo too - nice job!

Originally Posted by oliegirl

Very cool pics DC...I especially like the candle, but like wade moore, I like the color one as well! Can't wait to see more...

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Same here.

Great pics all around, Lorena!

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your comments! I must be really harsh on myself because the color image seems to have too much light (overexposed in photography terms)... what can I say, I'm my own worst critic.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your comments! I must be really harsh on myself because the color image seems to have too much light (overexposed in photography terms)... what can I say, I'm my own worst critic.

Overexposure can be a beautiful tool sometimes when you learn to harnass it. In this case, I think it was accidental, but I still think it makes for a great effect.

You might really enjoy night photography. I'd recommend looking it up or asking me about it and I can explain it to you. I've never seen how it would work on Digital because you have to overexpose, but I'm sure you can make it work.

[Lorena]

07/08/06

Today was a bit tough. I started a bit late as the sun was going down and most of my images were good in concept, but very, very blurry. So I walked a little more and came across this tree. It was the only image that wasn't blurry so I went for it. It's more of a post processing project, as you will see.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Post Processing:

Curves - for color/saturation
Levels - for contrast
Dodge - to lighten the flowers
Burn - to darken the sky
Curves 2 - to darken the blue in the sky
Heal - to remove the 2 specks in the sky
Sharpen - for less blur

I'm gonna have to step it up a bit; this one looks amateurish compared to yesterday's image.

[wade moore]

Nice post-processing work...

I have to ask... are your lenses dirty? You seem to get a lot of spots on your photos to me...

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Nice post-processing work...

Thanks!

Originally Posted by wade moore

I have to ask... are your lenses dirty? You seem to get a lot of spots on your photos to me...

:o Umm.. yeah, sure looks that way. At first I thought it might have been speckles of dust or water droplets from the rain, but I guess not.

[Lorena]

Today, I knew exactly what to take an picture of. We gave our son Landon a Plasma Ball that looks similar to THIS for his birthday so my intent was to place it in front of a mirror and take pictures. I called Jr. Assistant Larissa to come in and help. I took about 8 shots or so and she asked if she could take a few. I hesitantly said yes and she basically directed where my hands should go and this was one of the shots. My favorite actually.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Sometimes I get so involved in the post processing that I lose track of what I did, but I remember the usual LAB adjustments, Sharpen, and added a second Curves layer with an overlay to boost the contrast a tad.

I appreciate you coming by, thanks and I'll c-ya tomorrow!

[MacroGuru]

Definately like the shots....

[Lorena]

07-11-06A

Yesterday was a very long, tiresome day and I didn't get a chance to take any pictures so today, I will upload 2 of them.

This image was taken right behind Larissa's school. We registered her today for Kindergarden which is very, very exciting. She's been waiting to go to school for about a year now. She wasn't allowed to start kindergarden in Phoenix because she missed the age requirement by 1 week. It actually worked out because now she'll be starting school in our permanent home as opposed to starting school temporarily in Phoenix and then having her transfer out here.

So anyway, Landon is a hard kid to photograph. Most of the time he's out doing his own thing and to get him to pose is really something; I usually follow him around while he's playing around and take pictures of him. In this image, he picked up a few rocks and was fascinated with the way the little pebbles fell off the pole.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Post Processing:

Changed image to LAB

Curves Layer - to adjusted Lightness A (green and magenta colors), and B (blue and yellow)Channels

Levels Layer - to adjust contrast

Hue/Saturation Layer - to adjust greens (the grass) and blues (the sky)

Burn Layer - burned the outside of image to make subject stand out

Cya in about an hour or so. Actually, this is a perfect opportunity to see how long it takes me to work the digital darkroom.

It is 12:00am our time... adios.

[Lorena]

07-11-06b

I decided to do something different with these images. Since I've never created a gif animation, I figured these would be perfect. As I learned how to create a gif animation, Antmeister also taught me how to create an action (kinda like a macro in Excel) in Photoshop. First, I adjusted levels for contrast, adjusted hue/saturation to make the sky and basketball stand out and sharpened the image using the High Pass option under filter -> other. After the images were fixed, I changed the image size. After that I created the gif.

So I used the continuous mode on my camera to take a picture of Antmeister shooting the basket.

As you will notice, I must have moved a little bit while taking this picture because the hoop looks like it's moving.

Here it is:



So how do you create a gif in Photoshop? I used THIS short tutorial.

[wade moore]

I like both of them!

[Lorena]

07/12/06

Whoa, I actually finished before midnight! Yay, this is a good time to catch up on some reading.

I had to do some grocery shopping so I grabbed my camera and off I went. As I drove through the nasty traffic off of Mopac, I saw this unusual bench on the side of this very busy street/highway and took a picture of it from inside the car. No, I wasn't driving and taking pictures, there was so much traffic I actually had time to adjust the settings and snap real quick.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Post Processing:

Converted image to LAB.

Added a Curve Layer to adjust the Lightness, A & B Channel.

Converted back to RGB.

Added a 2nd curves layer to find the darkest and lightest areas of the picture.

Added another layer to combine all layers into 1 (cntrl, shift, alt E).

Adjusted sharpness by using High Pass.


When the image is finished, we started changing the profile of my pictures to sRGB. The reason is because once the images get saved for the web, the details get lost (as mentioned by Wolfpack above). For more on this go HERE.

[Lorena]

07/13/06

Not a good day photography-wise. It seems as if I'm running out of ideas or something. Maybe I'm just becoming a lazy... I dunno. At around 10pm I realized I hadn't taken a picture so I walked around to see what was out there. Nothing caught my eye but as I looked over our fence, I saw these trees surrounded by light. Well, they looked really nice but I'm not sure if they come across the way I saw them. I might have let too much light in... shoulda left it at 15 seconds or so instead of 30.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post processing:

The usual stuff: LAB to make the colors pop a bit more, minor hue/saturation for the greens, some sharpening, 2 curves layers: one went with the lab ajustment, and the other to make the highlights surrounding the trees stand out some more.

[Dutch]

Wow, I had no idea you could make photos look so great! I definately have to figure out how to do this.

Thanks for sharing these before/after shots. Keep 'em coming!!!

[Lorena]

07/14/06

Today was a good day and I felt very confident (thanks Dutch) so I grabbed my trusty camera and took exactly 13 pictures, but most were of trees with a sunset in the background... they didn't quite come out like I wanted to... tomorrow is another day. So anyway, I drove by Mopac for a little bit and noticed the stop sign and the beautiful sunset in the background so I grabbed my tripod, mounted the camera on it and snapped away, this is the result.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Post Processing:

Usual LAB and curves layers

2 Hue/Saturation layers - 1st layer: masked sign and adjusted hue/saturation to my liking; 2nd layer, inverted mask so I can get the sky and adjusted hue/saturation to my liking.

Usual sharpen using high pass

If anyone has any questions about any of the post processing or techniques used in any of these, feel free to ask. I'm on the board 18/7

[Lorena]

07/15/06

We had to drive to South Austin today so I brought my camera. As we were driving I noticed it started getting dark really quick, so I adjusted the ISO (film speed) on the camera. I took a few images with a shutter speed of 8 at 100 ISO, then changed the ISO to 1600 and the shutter speed jumped from that to about 60 or so. I figured what the heck, let me go one up to 3200 and it made a huge difference. I'll post the settings of the picture below.

So anyway, as we were driving, I look out the window and noticed the reflection of the sunset on the rear view mirror.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Post Processing:

LAB stuff

2 curves - 1 for LAB adjustments, and other for lightness (after converting from LAB to RGB)

Levels - to adjust contrast

Gaussian Blur - to minimize noise (you get noticeable noise [or grain in non-photography terms] when the ISO is anything more than 400)

Hue/Saturation - adjust overall saturation

Highlights - adjusted highlights to make windows stand out

dodge - dodged the bottom of image to decrease darkness so you can see the bottom edge of the mirror

I love that my camera has the capability to increase the ISO to 3200, but the drawback is you get tons of noise. To fix the noise, we applied a gaussian blur filter to tackle the color specks. The disadvantage was that it made the image slightly blurry. We erased some of the blurry spots to make the edges of the car and windows look closer to the original image.

Here are my camera's settings:

Exposure: 1/125 sec
Exposure program: aperture priority
F-stop: f5.6
ISO: 3200
Focal length: 80.0mm

[Wolfpack]

Interesting photo idea. Just me, but I probably would have kept the original, maybe worked to brighten up the sunset a bit. The treated one looks a little harsh to me. The original one seems to have the twilight look pretty well captured. You also seem to lose the perspective that you're looking at a rearview mirror, which I think adds a neat little artistic touch to the original. The "surround" of the mirror in the second shot blends too much into the mirror. Perhaps if you could combine the mirror of the second with the "surround" of the first....

Otherwise, neat photo idea.

My own personal twilight story: I remember last year we came out of a Target near our house and it was quite possibly the most wildly colorful and interesting sky I'd ever seen. I didn't have my camera (who'd think you'd need it in the middle of a Target parking lot?), but I really was wishing I had it. It was a perfect transition sky working from an orange horizon to a fairly deep blue overhead with a thick crescent moon off to the south and just the right amount of clouds floating by. It was almost otherworldly. I wonder if I'll ever get to see a sky like that and have a camera handy to capture it in the future. But, I digress.