Continuing on the theme of Where Food Comes From, we have a new subject for you to identify. Can you guess what this is? (* Answer below.)
We had been concerned about this plant over the winter, as it looked a bit gangly. But as this year’s new growth flushed in, the plant became much larger and fluffier just before sending out these beautiful flowers laced with various purple tones.
We don’t harvest the leaves of this plant while it’s blooming, but otherwise, we clip off the leaves, rinse and dry them, and then sauté or pan-fry them in butter and olive oil. (Okay, more butter than oil for this treat!) Don’t make them too dark, or they’ll get bitter.
After about five minutes, you take the leaves out of the butter and cool them on a paper towel. IF there are any remaining after we snitch them, we put the leaves on pasta, on salads, or any other dish that could use a come-up. It always surprises us when the toasted leaves make it to the plate.
* Somewhere on the ‘net, a woman asked what to do with all the excess sage she had growing in her garden. Someone else responded with the above idea, and voila… no more excess sage.
This is another macro-focus-stack image, derived from five separate images taken at various focus points along the plane. Using Auto-Align Layers and then Auto-Stack Layers commands in Photoshop CS6 produces a good result with few artifacts.
After experiencing the demise of more than a few fresh Maine lobsters one evening, we decided to celebrate by catching the sunset at a nearby wharf. There was some sort of seminar or class going on in the area – there were a number of paint artists in the area set up at different viewpoints, and some were being videotaped as they worked.
It was quiet and serene as I went about catching different scenes, with Susan recording some video segments. I asked this woman if I could take a few frames; she graciously said Yes. I’m delighted that she did.
~
HDR from three exposures, 26mm, f/11, ISO100, merged in Nik’s HDR Efex Pro 2, modified with several filters in Photoshop with masking via Topaz Remask 3
The main workbench at Limmer & Sons Custom Boots in Intervale, New Hampshire.
You might recall this location from other images, “The Bootmaker”, “They Never Call”, and “Consigned”, among others. Let’s suggest that it’s a target-rich environment for an HDR photographer.
When talking to Pete Limmer last fall, he had mentioned that some of those earlier pictures were “very detailed.” I never really found out if that was a good thing, or not, but for this image I thought I’d hedge my bets by presenting a more realistic, less ‘hyper’ image. In fact, I had processed this scene some time ago and kept it on file, but when I opened it up for review, it was sort of an assault on the eyes. So, I reprocessed it completely to come up with this version.
I’m planning to create a new video tutorial soon, titled something like, “Why Photomatix Pro alone isn’t enough.” Often, when trying to come up with a realistic-looking HDR image, Photomatix falls short for me — I find that the output can often be soft. Other programs such as HDR Expose (from Unified Color) or ImageFuser tend to be better choices, although I almost always wind up blending in some Photomatix versions before doing more detailed processing. For this version, I started with the output from HDR Expose, adjusted it using 32-Float, and then layered in a Photomatix tonemap at 24% Normal and a Shadowmap at 22% Hard Light as a base before setting about with other adjustments (brightness, skew, de-fringe, etc.) and filter techniques (Nik Color Efex Pro.)
In the end, I think it created a balance between the high-detail of a very complicated environment, along with a good dose of realism. I also really appreciate Peter and Ken letting me into the back of the shop during working hours to capture this unique scene.
I’ve long wanted to create a video tutorial as a way of passing along ideas that others have contributed along the path of learning HDR processing. It took the urging of one Mark “Konaflyer” Patton to have me get down to business on the project. (Hence, the title of the image, “Pier Pressure.”) Mark had emailed, wanting to know how I achieved a certain “glossy” look to some of my HDR images. As it turns out, creating the video — and working on Mark’s brackets — was a lot more fun than I expected! Best of all, Mark has graciously agreed to let me post his image and the video for all to see in the interests of passing along knowledge to others. Thanks, Mark! Please be sure to visit Mark’s great Flickr photostream.
Perhaps… it was a bit too much fun. The resulting video turned out to be an hour long as I took Mark’s brackets from the original RAW files to the final product you see here. Although Mark has viewed this in its entirety, I had to break it into five different parts in order to satisfy the 15-minute restriction on YouTube. That’s okay, I figure; In between segments you can get a cup of joe, slap yourself awake, or otherwise lift your spirits as we get down to some of the fine points of post-processing. I promise that next time I create a video, I’ll make it 15 minutes, or less.
I’ve included the embedded YouTube videos here. Later, when this blog post gets buried in the archives, you can access the videos via my Tutorials page. Or, if you’d like to subscribe to my YouTube channel, you can receive updates whenever new videos are posted.
You can view the videos directly from this blog page, or view them on YouTube. Either way, please remember to view them in 720p mode if your system is capable of that.
This is my first go at creating a video and posting it. So, if you see anything amiss, please let me know right away. If you find anything useful or helpful in all of this, I’d love to hear about that as well. Comments and feedback are always welcomed here.
Cheers, and happy viewing.
Rob
Part 1: Includes Introduction, Image Analysis, Creating multiple tonemaps in Photomatix Pro
.
Part 2: Includes Layering & Blending Tonemap Files in Photoshop CS5, Image Cleanup Techniques
.
Part 3: Includes Defringing, Denoise, LAHR Sharpening
.
Part 4: Includes Nik Color Efex Pro, Color Fixing
.
Part 5: Includes Cropping, Finishing, Output Sharpening, Saving, and Conclusion
~ With apologies to Morris Albert for the riff on his song title.
More properly, my apologies to anyone who reads the title and then goes through the day thinking, “Wo-o-o peelings, again in my arms.” It wasn’t my intention to give anyone ‘brain worm’ with that song… you know, where once the tune gets in your head, it just won’t leave. Feel free to post your day’s experiences in the comment section. 8)
Many times when we’re faced with a fascinating subject such as a rusty old truck, the tendency is to frame the entire subject, sometimes at the risk of the image being a bit trite. Trite be damned, when the subject is good, we can’t help but want to show the entire thing.
After taking that ‘overall’ shot, moving in with your feet is always a good strategy. Focus in on parts that are not immediately recognizable, but possess their own interesting qualities. There is usually beauty in the details.
Such is the case with this frame, taken along the back of the cab of an old rusted out Ford. In fact, it’s the same Ford featured in Found On Road Dead… Literally. The right side of the picture shows just as the cab rounds the corner to the side of the truck, and you can make out a broken rear window in the upper left.
Nikon D7000, Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 lens, at 26mm f/11, eleven exposures fired with Promote Control.
Recipe:
Having processed a few rust, “rurbex” images, I’ve come up with some tips for bringing out the details in a rusty surface.
Using either HDR Express from Unified Color, or Photomatix Pro from HDRsoft (or sometimes both), I create several tonemapped images using the Shadowmapping technique. This technique boosts contrast and detail very nicely, and I can combine the best outputs together before determining which is my favorite. Once I decide on which makes the best ‘base’ image to work from, my next step is to use the ‘Neutralize Whites’ filter available in Nik Color Efex Pro. Shooting a rusty surface almost always introduces a yellow-ocher color cast, especially if you don’t set a custom white balance on site, so this filter can remove that subtle but distracting tone shift. In order to really pop the detail on the rust, I then turn to the ‘Tonal Contrast’ filter in Color Efex Pro. It’s easy to overdo this one by making the shot look overly sharp, but judicious use brings up a tremendous amount of detail. Those are my two primary tools. I’ll usually do some other adjustments for hue and saturation, along with some cropping, but the two Nik filters are often enough. Once I’m satisfied with the overall result, I often apply Nik’s ‘Darken/Lighten Center’ to draw the eye, and doing a sharpening pass on a new, merged layer using the LAB sharpening technique can render just a bit more detail.
I have seen the following technique from a couple of sources. The first was in one of Rick Sammon’s books, and then I saw it in a very recent blog. I was reminded to cover this technique with my own image as I uploaded it for printing on aluminum at SizzlPix! It’s a fun post-processing technique that you can try on some of your own images. It won’t be a hit on every one of them, but when it does work, the results are pretty wild.
First, look for an image with a strong graphic element. Flowers and trees tend to work very well, and if you can avoid a cluttered background, so much the better.
Here is my original image. Notice the strong graphic element of the trees, and a minimally disrupted background.
On this image, after bringing it into Photoshop (CS4, in this case), I did a little modification by adding a NIK Color Efex Pro Polarization filter in order to even out the brilliant blue sky. Then, using my LAHR/HALR sharpening technique, I brought things to the clarity that I wanted.
Make sure the image is flattened. Also ensure that it’s in 8-bit mode by using the Image -> Mode -> 8-bits/Channel command, as the upcoming Distort filter doesn’t work in 16-bit mode.
Go to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinates. In the preview window, select Polar To Rectangular and let it fly. Funky, eh? Maybe you’d like to stop there…
Go to Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Canvas Vertical. And then…
Go to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinate, but select Rectangular to Polar.
For this image, the result is:
Well, there was just a bit of extra work. The immediate output from the final Distort command yielded, in this case, a tan or buff background. Using a simple Paint Bucket tool set to a very low Tolerance of only a few pixels, I dumped black into the outer areas to really set off the contrast to the image.
I’ve printed this out large on metallic paper. Killer!
This is one of those techniques that can really yield some interesting surprises. Feel free to play around with various combinations and different images. Since there’s so little effort involved, you really can’t go wrong.
Rob Hanson Photography Blog 