First Post Processing After A Trip To West Virginia

 We’re baaack!  We were in the wilds of West Virginia (which wasn’t as “wild” as I had hoped) over a long weekend.  I’d read the information on the web and believed (foolish boy) what they said about late September being the height of the foliage in northeastern West Virginia.  Maybe it was just this year and the hotter than typical summer had pushed the foliage season back a couple of weeks, but it was midsummer type shooting everywhere we went.  Today’s image is typical of what we saw, with rich, creamy greens and scenes backlit by the setting sun.  This, fairly dramatic, scene was taken from a “scenic overlook” along Route 55 at one of the few times I hadn’t plugged the GPS into the camera.  No matter, if you’re driving east from Moorefield on the newer highway you can’t miss it.  As has been the case in the past several posts, I’ve included the Layers Panel for those who’d like to follow along.  Today’s image is pretty straight forward.  It started out in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and what we see is the “after” of the hop over to Adobe Photoshop CS5.  To find out what makes today’s image different, hit the “read more”.
For the most part, today’s image is pretty standard. The first thing done doesn’t even show up in the Layers Panel. The typical aspect ratio we crop to is 4 x 5, 8 x 10, 16 x 20. Most images are cropped to 16 x 20 @ 150 ppi. Some may gasp, knowing that hundreds of articles have been written about using 300 ppi or at the minimum 240 ppi. The only thing that shows is that hundreds of writers don’t have a good grasp of the relationship between the screen and a printer. Every pixel on the screen can represent any one of 16,000,000 colors if the screen is set to 32 bit color depth. Every dot on a print is made up of five drops of ink. In the “old days”, when printers printed at 300 dpi you could actually see the dot pattern made by the printer. Today, with printers giving 1440 dpi to 2880 dpi, the dot pattern can’t be seen with anything less than a fairly good loop. The big thing to make note of is that we’re talking of ppi (pixels per inch) on the screen and dpi (dots per inch) on the printer. If each “dot” on the print is made up of five drops you can easily see that there’s more than enough information given by giving the image 150 ppi. So much for a rant on sharpness.



What’s listed on the Layer Panel as Layer 2 is a composite layer (Ctrl/Alt/Shift/E) of everything below it. The Blend Mode was changed to Screen to brighten the buildings and then masked to keep the rest of the scene at its proper color levels. Layer 3 is the Dodging and Burning Layer. Only dodging was used and only the tips of the sunlit crowns of the trees were hit. The settings for the dodging were “Protect Tones”, Highlights and the Strength set to about 25% The actual number was 27%, but it’s an analog world, so “about 25%” is “close enough”. You’re not going to see the difference between 25% and 27%.


Layer 4 puts a light in the only window of the barn. The Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) was used to select the window and then filled with a bright yellow. The Opacity was then lowered to “somewhere near 10%”, so as not to draw too much attention to the window. If you’re looking for details, the window now has a light in it. If you’re just generally looking at the image, it’s not going to jump out at you.

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I finally got myself a tumblr because it's easier to update than a fashion blog, so while you all wait for posts on here, you can just head on over to my tumblr and see what I'm up to.

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New post tomorrow!

The Low End Of Adobe Photoshop CS5's Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers

All three posts this week have been about Adobe Photoshop CS5’s Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers.  Monday’s image had multiple adjustment layers of the same color (3 Red, 2 Green, 23 Cyan, and one each of Yellow, Blue and Magenta).  Wednesday’s image had one adjustment layer for each color, but each one had fairly highly abused masks.  Today’s image’s Layers Panel shows one Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and none of the masks has any areas held back.  Sometimes it just happens that way.  Colors looked good with bringing up the saturation evenly across the frame of the image.  What the image did need was to brighten specific areas.  Each different area needed to be attended to with its own amount of light added to separate components.  There is one additional Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, but, as usual, it has its own special twist.  It doesn’t matter if or what color was used to make the adjustment.  The Adjustment Layer affects only the white stars and stripes of the flag.  Being in the shade, the white areas of the flag had a slight blue cast.  To bring it into a crisper, whiter appearance the Saturation was lowered (-54 on the Master Saturation).  Find out more about each Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer by hitting the “read more”.

There are five individual Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layers. We’ll take them in the order they were used. The first is for the staircase visible in the door. Clicking on the image will result in a much larger copy of the image being opened. This can be better to see the effect of each adjustment. The staircase, being inside the house couldn’t have too much brightening or it would look unrealistic. A selection was made, the edge refined using CS5’s Refine Edge feature for a Selection to get around the leaves outside in the dappled sunlight.

The second B/C Adjustment Layer brings up detail on the outfit and shutter. Without brightening the shutter and outfit appeared just plain black. Next is the vest and purple shirt. Due to the shade on the porch, the body mannequin was just another dark blob. Before brightening, the lavender of the shirt didn’t show up at all. Number four is the left shutter. The justification for this Adjustment Layer was only to match it to the right shutter. The amount of brightening was different, so another Adjustment Layer was called for.

The last Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer is one of the keys to today’s image “working”. The Tiffany hanging lamp, visible inside the door, gives the staircase and banister their reason for glowing. The lamp is broken into two components. The part visible through the open door and the smaller piece seen through the window of the closed door. A general brightening of the lamp resulted in a strong side and a weaker side. The windowed piece became a two step process. One was the Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer and then it was also Dodged (O) in the composite Layer (Ctrl/Alt/Shift/E). The brightness was deliberately kept slightly less than the “open” side of the shade to account for the window sucking up some light.

Other areas that were Dodged (O) in the composite Layer were the wind chimes and the bird house/lantern near the left side of the window. The sculptures on the lawn fell into place with only the saturation provided by the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers and the bicycle rickshaw was just a bonus. The image “looks” pretty straight, but a lot of work (quick work) went into creating something the appears natural.

Kent and Adobe Photoshop CS5 Adjustment Layers Revisited

Today’s image may look fairly familiar.  We were out shooting over the weekend in northwest Connecticut and the car sort of automatically steered toward Kent.  Kent has to be one of the great strolling towns in New England, if not the world.  There’s always a lively street scene going on and several sidewalk cafes are typically abuzz with folks socializing.  As I walked down Main Street, a young couple stopped me to talk about cameras.  It’s just that type of place, friendly, social, pretty, quaint, urbane and just a plain neat place to visit.  Today’s visit might be thought of as a revisit of the image that appeared here on June 2^nd.  It’s the same café, with the same umbrellas, but a different cast of characters.  Other than the people in the shot and the date the shutter was snapped, the reason for the revisit is to show the Layers Panel used to make up the final image.  One thing frequent visitors may notice in the Layers Panel is that there is no Threshold Adjustment Layer to correct any color cast.  There a couple reasons for that.  I’ve probably done more than one hundred different HDR images now.  The first reason for no color correction sequence is that, after creating the baseline HDR image, all the Curves Adjustment Layers seem to have a curve that’s zero, zero, zero.  No Changes.  The second reason is: who’s to say what “correct color” is on a pushed HDR image.  You certainly can’t look at today’s image and say “the colors look so natural”.  HDR can go one of two ways.  To make a scene look “very natural” or to make it look “hyper-natural”.  If you go for the “very natural”, surely you want the colors to look as correct as possible.  If the “intent” (we’ve discussed “intent” several times here on the blog) is “hyper- natural” the end colors can be a wild as you like.  To see the discussion of today’s Layers Panel, hit the “read more”.

Today’s Layers Panel is sort of an intermediate step between Monday’s pretty extreme panel and a plain vanilla panel that might have little to no masking of the individual Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers. The biggest difference between Monday and today is the number of individual Adjustment Layers. Today we have one of each color (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue and Magenta), where Monday’s had three Red, three Cyan, two Green and one each of Yellow, Blue and Magenta. One of the other things of note is the amount of masking in the Magenta Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. Monday’s image had none and today’s looks like some sort of Morse Code pictogram in the top half of the mask. Lots of little pieces. The Magenta is cranked up high, giving good color to the flowers in the hanging baskets, but also producing stray bits of color in unwanted spots. Magenta, at high levels, gives a lot of edge casts around a lot of Cyan and Blue. Each case had to be addressed, does it stay in because it gives an interesting line, or is it a distraction and have to go? Hence, all the dots and dashes of the Magenta Mask.







There’s a couple “extra”, blank layers, just above the Adjustment Layer stack. If you compare the June 2nd version to today’s image you can see the wooden posts have changed. The earlier posts look like green, pressure treated wood. Today’s appear to be a more natural wood. The trick here is a Blending Mode change. A dark brown was selected from the Swatches Panel (Darker Warm Brown specifically). A quick selection was made using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and filled with the brown color. Without the Blend Mode change it looks really bad. Just a plain brown blob on the image. Changing the Blend Mode to Color keeps the color, but allows the texture of the wood to show through. The same goes for the terra cotta pot out by the edge of the road. The pot was selected using the Quick Selection Tool (W) and filled with “Dark Red Orange”. Two Layers were devoted to those two changes. That’s it, that the only thing on each of those two layers. Could it have been done on one layer? Sure, but then the ability to make choices about the colors would be lost. Did one color need to be lower in Opacity? At some point (on a different image) there may be a need for a mask for one of the colors. Flexibility is the key to using Layers. Don’t do anything that might limit what you can do. Keep things as fluid as possible.



A composite Layer (Ctrl/Alt/Shift/E) was made to create a platform for Dodging and Burning (O) individual pieces. Before CS5 the method to use was to create a new Layer, fill it with 50% grey (Shift/F5), change the Blend Mode to Overlay and paint (at a low percentage on the Brush) with black or white to dodge or burn. Photoshop CS5 eliminates the need to go through that. The Dodge and Burn Tool (O) has a check box that says “Protect Tones”. With that box checked, the problem of everything turning sickly grey has been addressed. The D&B Tool works as it should. The blond hair of the woman on the left of the scene has been Dodged, along with the Harley Davidson logo on the back of the man’s jacket. The creases of the T-shirt on the man was Dodged and Burned on the Highlights and Shadows, as was the creases on the jeans of the blond woman.



Another blank layer is used to eliminate a pretty severe glare off the rear window of a car far in the background. It showed up as a starburst on the shoulder of the women on the far right. A simple swipe of the Clone Stamp Tool (S) is the only thing on that Layer.



The image was “finished” with the “normal” sharpening and vignetting. Adobe Photoshop CS5’s HDR Pro and HDR Toning provide starting points for finishing an image, not the final product itself.

Wow! Hello Montreal, Outremont, St Laurent and Laval.

Wow is all I can say. In the past month, readership north of the border has skyrocketed. I’d like to welcome the readers from the greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada area. The blog has readers in 76 countries around the world and, in most cases, numbers have climbed at a steady rate. In the past thirty days the increase in Canada in general, and the Montreal area specifically has made a real jump. The data I get only shows the cities and town around the world where readers are. Absolutely no personal data is obtained. Therefore, without being able to send each of you a personal email, I can only give a general acknowledgement and say how encouraging it is to see the same cities pop up day after day.

All I can say is that I appreciate your readership and will continue to try to provide interesting anecdotes and techniques on photography and Photoshop related subjects. Let me know what you’d like to hear about and I’ll put up a post on the topic. Thanks to every reader, everywhere.

What Happens After Adobe Photoshop CS5's HDRPro?

I’ve had several inquiries lately about “how” I get the bright colors you see in my images and “why” I keep talking about using an individual Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer for each color (Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Magenta).  Along with today’s image I’ve included the Layers Panel that goes along with it.  Clicking on the image of the Layers Panel will produce an enlarged image of it and may make following along easier.  First, a little explanation of how the image got into the state it’s in.  It did start out as a three shot HDR Pro image.  The EV (Exposure Value) settings were -.3, -2.3 and +1.67, so it’s a three shot bracket at two stop intervals.  My “normal” EV setting is -0.3 stops, so that way you see what might look like strange numbers rather than 0, -2 and +2.  The reason for the “normal” being one third stop to the minus side is just to provide a denser initial shot.  The Layers Panel shown is only what was done after the HDR Pro work was completed.  The panel only shows the “finishing” of the image to its current state.  Of the fifteen steps in the panel you’ll see that eleven are Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers.  Wednesday I show a Layers Panel that considerably calmer, but today’s is a little more on the extreme side.  There’s three Red Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers, one Yellow, two Green, two Cyan, and one each of Blue and Magenta.  One of the first things you might notice is that every Mask that goes along with the adjustment layers, except one, are very different looking.  No two are alike.  The “how” and the “why” questions about the colors in my images both relate to my use of the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers.  Take a look at the explanation in the “read more”.

First, a quick statement about my use of the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers. It might as well be called the Saturation Adjustment Layer in the way I use it. I only use the saturation slider in the normal course of my work. I’ll run the slider up to 100% and then use Shift/Down Arrow to bring it back to the level that looks good to me. I use the Shift/Down Arrow to move the slider in increments of 10% rather than increments of 1%. The difference between 90% and 80% may be a visible change. The difference between 85% and 84 % won’t be discernible.


Let’s answer the “why” I use individual Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers question. It should be pretty evident from looking at the image of the panel. Different colors need different masks. Sometimes the same color needs different masks in different areas. The first Red H/S AL concerns only the pillows on the couch in the windows. They need a more intense red (100%) than any other portion of the image. The second section of the image is the façade of the buildings. That’s 40%. The face and arms of the fellow sitting on the steps and the Open sign above him needed to be blocked. The final red adjustment was the sidewalk and the stairs going up into the building (70%). The Greens are also two separate layers. The first is a basic global adjustment (60%), but the granite steps and the two small, potted trees have been held back. The second green Adjustment Layer (80%) affects only the window box. And so it goes. Each image is looked at as its individual pieces. Does the pillow need more red than the façade? Does the window box need more green than the rest of the image? And on and on.


The Master Hue/Saturation option is just about useless. I can’t think of any image I’ve made in years where all colors needed the same amount of saturation boost. Using one Adjustment Layer and going through each color on that AL doesn’t work either. You’d be left with one mask, and as can be seen in today’s image, no one mask can could possibly mask each color effectively.


Once all the saturation levels were set for the individual colors a composite of the image was put up on its own layer (Crtl/Alt/Shift/E). This was used for dodging and burning selected areas of the image. For today’s image that was a straight Burn (O) of the basket hanging on the railing and an alternating Dodge and Burn of the folds of the man’s pants and sweater. Burn the dark areas and Dodge the light areas that fall right next to the dark areas to increase texture. The bottom of the roll of the sofa in the window was also Burned in a little to give shape to the couch.


The final steps were to make another composite of the image (Ctrl/Alt/Shift/E) and then a copy of that layer. The first composite layer was used to sharpen the image using a High Pass Filter after creating a Smart Object out of the layer. The copy (unsharpened) was used to create a vignette. The Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) was used to make a selection equally around the image, then feathered to round the corners. Tapping the Delete Kay makes a hole with a feathered edge. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply to darken the edges and corners of the image and use the Opacity Slider to adjust to taste.

hello there polka dot sunshine

I've noticed that for the past week my outfits have consisted of way too much black, therefore, yesterday after spending a pile of money on school books, I decided to spend some more money and buy this red polka dotted dress from H&M. Thankfully, it was on sale so it didn't really contribute to the growing hole in my pocket.

It's funny how when school starts up I start shuffling back to my usual scholarly looks. I just don't feel like experimenting with different styles that much because I have so many other things to focus on. But the coming autumn months have me excited because I can't wait to wear warm cuddly sweaters and circle skirts, layers of scarves and socks, donning a stack of books under one arm and a coffee cup in the other whilst on my way to class.

Ps. My updates will be much slower now because between all the things that come with the school year I just don't have the energy or time to update each day, so about 3/4 posts a week.

Wearing an H&M polka dot dress, vintage belt, unknown tights, Minnentonka flats, Marciano jacket, jewelry is gifted, American Apparel nail polish in Office.

How Many Balloons Can You Get In One Shot?

Well, the easy answer is as many as you want.  Today’s image involves several techniques, getting five balloons into the shot.  Three actually come from one snap of the shutter.  The other two are placed to ad interest to the image.  The three in one snap are the small, blue balloon, the balloon in the lower right and the balloon in the upper, almost center.  The balloon with the glow of the fire in the lower left was added, as was the one in the upper right.  Just because the three were in one shot, doesn’t mean their positions were as shown.  Some “trickery” was done to position them.  Before finding out about what was done (in the “read more” section), see if you can come up with a logical explanation of how they were move around.  The glow is the foreground balloon is definitely a glow, but, perhaps, not the glow you might thing.  One of the most important things to keep in mind if you’d like to try to do a composite image like today’s is to be aware of where the light comes from.  If the balloon in the upper right had the sun shining on it from the opposite side it would be glaringly obvious.  By matching the direction of light it fits in quite naturally.  The sky was actually that blue through a circular polarizer.  It was also that cloudless.  That made for some pretty boring images if you only had one balloon in the shot.  So, let’s get on with what was done to each piece of the images to create the final composition.  Check out the notes in the “read more”.

The primary image was of the three balloons, but it was one balloon over there and one way over in this direction and another in the top, almost going out of frame. The big news, when Adobe Photoshop CS5 was first released was “Content Aware Fill”. A new and magical advancement that allowed fences or wires to be removed from a scene with the click of a button. Before that, in CS4, “Content Aware Scaling” was introduced and is still available in CS5. The three balloons in the primary shot had way too much room between them, so CAS was the ideal tool to bring them together. It’s not as easy to use as CAF, but much easier than doing things by hand. First thing to do is decide what needs to be preserved. In this can it was the balloons. Take a selection tool (I used a simple Lasso Tool [L]) and make a selection of the object to be protected. Right click in the selection and click on Save Selection. This produces an Alpha Channel with the selection masked. Then pick Edit/Content Aware Scale. It’s, basically, a version of Free Transform with Scale already chosen. In the Context Aware bar there will be a dropdown titled Protect. This gives you the selections that you’ve denoted as being areas that are important. Selection the most important and grab the handles at the sides of the image and drag whichever way is needed. You’ll see everything except the protected area redrawing to conform to the new dimensions. Restep to do the same to each object to be saved.


The glow in the closest balloon comes from the Inner Glow Style found by double clicking in the Layer box. Selecting the Size, Choke and Opacity fills in the glow, giving the appearance of light from inside the balloon. Using the Quick Selection Tool (W) makes masking the regular shape of the balloon very easy. The Move Tool (V) is then used to position the balloon in a natural looking spot.


Everything is done to make the shot look like something the comic Judy Tenuta could say “it could happen” to.

back to the books

I am back! YES, yes I am. After a week of cheering, losing my voice, getting very little sleep, living off bagels, candy and other random food products, dancing way into the night, all I can say is that I would gladly do it all over again. I had the most amazing week being a frosh (orientation) leader, I met so many incredible people, and I could literally spend hours gushing about what a wonderful time I had, but my blog isn't about that, so I'll just sum it up in a couple letters: O-M-F-G!!!!!

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It was the first day of school today, and after my summer, I'm glad to return to the books. As exhausting as it will get soon, I do love school. Sitting in lectures, reading books, rushing around campus from class to class, napping on the subway on the way to university, coffee runs, meeting new friends, party nights, impromptu lunches....etc, oh I just love it all.

Sorry for my rants, my thoughts just aren't collected right now. All the excitement you know. :)

First day of school outfit.

Wearing a vintage blazer and blouse, Tommy Hilfiger skirt, Geox flats, Ray Ban Wayfarers, gifted and vintage rings.

It's Almost Time For A Field Trip

Every year in the September/October time frame we take a couple of days to go out shooting. For the past four or five years we’ve headed to the Maine coast. Bar Harbor, Boothbay Harbor and almost every spit of land twenty miles down at the end of each peninsula jutting out into the sea have been targets for our wondering. This year we’ve decided to put the car in reverse (so to speak) and head in the other direction. I took a look at the distance up to Bar Harbor (about 440 miles) and spun the compass around the opposite way. It came up to western Pennsylvania and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We did the western PA thing a few years ago to check out largest Elk herd east of the Mississippi. Basically you need a longer lens than we had at the time or trample through people’s yards. If you ask the “officials”, they’ll tell you there’s a “viewing area” where you’re sure to see herds of elk. Sure enough, they said to be there about a half hour before sunset and there had to be a couple hundred elk in the field. Only problem was that the field was about a half mile away. There is the official viewing area, but some of the elks didn’t get the memo. You’re just as likely to see one, two or three elk standing on the side of the road or in someone’s back yard. On our way back from the viewing area we stopped along the side of the road and were within six feet of a couple of elks. We tried to get a couple shots, but the light had faded enough that they all came out blurry. Oh well. This year we’re heading to the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. A couple places we’re hoping to hit are the Dolly Sod area and Blackwater State Park. We’ll be spending one night at the Blackwater Lodge, on the Canyon side. We have two “guide books” we’re using to plot an itinerary. One is “Scenic Driving in West Virginia” and the other is “Waterfalls of Virginia and West Virginia, A Hiking and Photography Guide”. Both have been very informative. But, today’s image isn’t in West Virginia. To find out where it is, hot the “read more”.



Today’s image is from Bailey’s Island, Maine. It’s along route 24 about 16 miles south of route 24’s junction with route 1. We found out about the lobster shack in today’s image from Dave Middleton’s excellent book “A photographer’s Guide To The Maine Coast”. We were a little surprised when we got to the point for shooting the shack. Middleton’s shot showed the entire shack painted the same red as you see on the door. Dave had, obviously, gotten there just after the shack was painted. Several years of weathering late and we arrived. It certainly wasn’t the same shot David had gotten. On the spur of the moment we continued down to the bottom of the peninsula just to see what we would see. Reminds me of an old song. “I joined the Navy to see the world, but what did I see? I saw the sea”.


I’m hoping our drive to West Virginia results in as good shooting as has been the coast of Maine.

a vision

This is a scheduled post! I'm currently a frosh (orientation) leader at my university. I will be gone from September 3rd to the 11th so I will not be able to comment on any blogs during that time period. I hope you all comment on my posts nonetheless and I will comment back when I get home! Have an super duper week!

While my blog is primarily a fashion blog, I do enjoy posting non-outfit photos. Photography is a great passion of mine, and I think there is something amazing about being able to express yourself through photographs. Here are a few photographs that I've taken in the last little while.

You Might Think This Is A Night Shot

Like the title says, you might think this was shot at night. Actually, the shot was taken at 4:13 on the afternoon of July 18th, a bright, sunny, hot summer day in Shelbourne Falls, Massachusetts. The facts of the shot are that it was shot at F16 @ 1/400th of a second. The EV (Exposure Value) was reduced by .85 stops, so the equivalent shutter speed would have been close to 1/800th of a second. Well above the “normal” sync speed of a camera. No sun blocking device was used on the background and yet, the background is dark. The close up creates kind of a moody portrait of a flower. So, we have a contradiction, an enigma, a brainteaser of a shot. Not so much. I’d talked about the same technique a couple of weeks ago. The shot was made using Auto FP High Speed Sync. One of the lesser used ways of firing a flash. A couple things to remember about Auto FP are that you can use any shutter speed, up to the limit of your camera and that you lose a ton of light doing it. The camera was set to Manual mode and the f-Stop and Shutter Speed set to give big depth of field and have a reasonably fast shutter speed. Being the cheapskate that I am, I used two SB600 Nikon Speedlites rather than one SB900. The camera was held in my right hand and both flashes held in my left. Doris was off shooting her own set of flowers and we hadn’t brought any light stands. So there I was, bent over, lens almost stuck inside a flower, flashes in one hand and camera in the other. It’s a wonder someone didn’t snap a shot of me working the flower. It had to be a pretty strange sight. People will often give out of kilter glances when they see someone using flashes on a bright, sunny afternoon. The thought is “doesn’t he have enough light already?” It’s not the amount of light that’s important, it the control of the light. A good example would be an outdoor movie set. Everything is setup to work with the ambient light. Then the stars are put under a shade screen and lit independent of the overall scene. The objective is to have flattering light on the star and make it appear that he/she blends in with the ambient. It’s all about control. To find out what happened to the image after the shutter snapped, hit the “read more”.



The first stop for today’s image was ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). ACR lit up like a Christmas tree with nothing but blue bulbs. The indicator was showing that the blacks were blocked up on a large portion of the image. Duh! Look at the image. They’re supposed to be blocked up. I used the Adjustment Brush to bring the exposure down .30 stops in the bright areas and up .60 stops in the darkest areas of the petals. Cranked up the Clarity to about 50% and the Vibrance about the same. The world, being analog, and Adobe Photoshop CS5, being digital, “about 50%” means anywhere from 45% to 55%. About five different “Pins” were dropped and small areas of the image adjusted to taste. It was a short trip over to PS CS5 and a run through a typical sequence of establishing the maximum black and white points, saturating each color and a final round of sharpening. (Even with the Clarity adjusted in ACR, final sharpening is still a requirement.)


There is one more thing about today’s image (in the name of full disclosure). The original shot went from petal tip to petal tip. Today’s image is one of the bigger crops you’ll see here on the blog. Normally, the only cropping done to an image is to get it into a 4x5, 8x10, 16x 20 format.

are we just sinking in an ocean of faces?

This is a scheduled post! I'm currently a frosh (orientation) leader at my university. I will be gone from September 3rd to the 11th so I will not be able to comment on any blogs during that time period. I hope you all comment on my posts nonetheless and I will comment back when I get home! Have an super duper week!

I decided to make a little video for you all! I hope you enjoy watching it.

are we just sinking in an ocean of faces? from Look Photo on Vimeo.

Made by me via tripod and hand. Song is not mine.

Maxing Out Adobe Photoshop CS5's One Image HDR Toning

I knew exactly what image I wanted to use for today’s post. I haven’t taken it yet, so that presented a small problem. It was supposed to be a beautiful weekend around here so I thought the time was right. It’s starting to get dark earlier, the evening temperature was going to be tolerable (compared to trying the same shot in January or February) and the sky was forecasted to be clear. So, off we went on Saturday late afternoon. The route goes past one of our favorite restaurants (The Cook House in New Milford, CT), so leaving earlier left time for dinner before setting up. The goal for the evening was “star trails”, so darkness, without light pollution was a must. Arriving at the restaurant and surveying the skies didn’t exactly give us a warm, fuzzy feeling about the prospects for success. A recheck as we left the restaurant was a little more encouraging, as the clouds were breaking up a bit. Heading up Route 7 into the darkness of northwestern Connecticut, with an eye on the sky, teased us onward hinting of clearing. We got to one of the targets at late dusk. Enough clouds persisted to dash out hopes of shooting any stars. Sunday we had the gear packed in the car as we left for a family picnic. The picnic was still going as darkness closed in. At one point my brother-in-law and said “what are you looking at”? I replied “stars” and we were off chasing the night. Again, headed north to escape the light pollution, we arrived at the place we’d scouted on Saturday. Everything was set, the time was now, stars were sparkling, the night cool and clear and we at the right spot. Told my wife I that before we got out the tripods I was just going to do a couple of hand held shots just to check for exposure. I said they would, undoubtedly be blurry, but they’d only be a quick test. That’s when the sad fact that I’d left the camera on for a week and completely drained the batteries became apparent. That’s when Doris said "let’s was pack it up and go home. I’ll get my shots the same night you do”. Very nice of her. So, that’s the tale of how today’s image was selected. If you’d like to learn about what was done to it, hit the “read more”.

I just felt like playing this morning, so I found an image that could be played with. It’s a ride at a local carnival taken last month, during the day. I liked the bright red seats with the somewhat faded piping and seat backs. This one wound up being fun because it involved a Mask for the pavement below the ride, the background behind the ride and a combination of the two. It was taken into Adobe Photoshop CS5’s HDR Toning and a little side trip to a Shadow/Highlight Adjustment.


The first thing was to take the blah gray pavement below the ride to a good, rich black tar. The Quick Selection Tool (W) was used to pick up the areas of pavement. Right clicking on the selection brought up a dialog box and Save Selection chosen. This produced an Alpha Channel that could be activated at will. Next was another Mask for the areas between the padded pipes. Same thing, the Quick Selection Tool (W) with a little clean up with your favorite selection tool. Now we have two Alpha Chanel Masks. Each had something to on their own, but there were also times to use both together. Holding down the CTRL key while Clicking on the Alpha Channel icon reselects your original collection (either the “pavement” or the “background”. To marry the two Masks, drag either one down to the New Alpha Channel icon at the bottom of the panel. Select it, right click to get the dialog box and select Add to Selection.

After that, it was just fun and games, playing with HDR Toning (Image/Adjustments/HDR Toning), jacking up the individual colors using individual Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers and sliding sliders in Shadow/Highlight (Image/adjustments/Shadow-Highlight).

So, although we got skunked trying to get some start trails, today’s image was a fun one to play with.

zip zip zippy zip

This is a scheduled post! I'm currently a frosh (orientation) leader at my university. I will be gone from September 3rd to the 11th so I will not be able to comment on any blogs during that time period. I hope you all comment on my posts nonetheless and I will comment back when I get home! Have an super duper week!

Many times I start putting together an outfit and end up with something completely different than what I planned. This outfit is one of those cases. Originally I was wearing a floral silk skirt, but I noticed this denim zipper skirt next to it, and decided to see what I could make of it. I think it looks incredible as a dress, very fun and quirky. The blazer was definitely too hot for today, but this was an experimental outfit, so it was okay for the little time that I wore it.

I'm also wearing my new Keds. Can't wait to try these out with my ruffle socks from American Apparel.

Wearing a vintage skirt as a dress, Keds shoes, vintage blazer, Juicy Couture bracelet, gifted necklace.