Don't Drink and Print

Did you know all of the following affect how you see colors:

- Drinking coffee, coke, etc.
- Stress
- Being tired
- Alcohol
- Age

The next time you set out to calibrate your monitor, make a print, or just want to work on an image in the digital darkroom, keep all those things in mind.

I gotta go. I have so much to do, which is causing me stress. I have to take a nap because I'm tired. I am 59, but I still have lots of energy – because I drink tons of Diet Coke! Maybe tonight I can relax and have a drink at happy hour :-)

Explore the Light,
Rick
P.S. This idea for this post was generated by a discussion I had with a few friends about the Colormunki - the calibration device I use to calibrate my monitor, printer and projector – before I have my cup o' Joe :-)

The Fun and Creativity Never Stops with Plug-ins and Photoshop

I'm a big fan of plug-ins. They help photographers expand their creative horizon. What's more, they are easy and fun to use. Not to mention affordable.

A few weeks ago I posed the top two pictures you see here. The top image is an HDR image created in Photomatix from HDR Soft.

The next image is that image enhanced with Topaz Adjust. Topaz Adjust is not a true HDR plug-in, but it's amazing what it can do from a single image.

The next image is the Topaz Adjust image transformed to a black and white image using Silver Efex Pro from niksoftware.

The bottom image was was created by adding the Magic Portrait Fixer in onOneSoftware's PhotoTools - with a bit of a saturation and contrast boost afterward in Photoshop. (I often play more in Photoshop after applying a plug-in. Try it. You'll like it.)

Save some bucks on Photomatix, Silver Efex and PhotoTools Professional Edition by clicking here.

The next time you apply a plug-in effect to one of your images, experiment with other plug-ins on the same image – and then continue your creative exploration in Photoshop, or Aperture or Lightroom, etc.

Explore the Light,
Rick

The Magic of Photomerge

If you have not tried Photomerge in Photoshop CS4, what are you waiting for? It is much improved over earlier versions.

This top image illustrates the magic of Photomerge. When I took the series of pictures for my pano, I thought: This pano is going to look kinda strange. No way can Photomerge line up all the boards on the dock. Their angles are just way too different.

Well, to my surprise, Photomerge did a good job.

Is that pano perfect? No. You can see some imperfections in the stitching process on the dock. (I could have cloned them out.) Is it fun? Yes!

The bottom image is one of my favorite panos (HDR+ pano). The stitching process was much more successful because the foreground was further from the camera.

So that's today pano tip: try not to include a very (I added very after a comment posted here) close foreground element when shooting a pano – especially if the foreground element has strong lines.

Explore the light,
Rick

Oops, I Forgot to . . .

There is a problem (technical) with this photograph. I forgot to . . .

Post your answer here. First correct answer wins a copy of my Field Guide. (Sorry, US shipping only.)

Good luck,
Rick
P.S. Actually, I did not forget, I took the picture to illustrate a good photo tip.

Butterfly Coming In For A Landing

Here's a good example of balancing the light from a flash to the available light - something I often talk about on my workshops and in my seminars.

Here's one technique.

This post was inspired by a tweet by Chris Klapheke (say that three times fast).

Thanks Chris.

Explore the Light,
Rick