In Behind the photograph #001, Paul Watson shows how he processed a dramatic sunset photo. It is Photoshop specific but some of the techniques work in the GIMP too – that b/w burn layer tip is very dramatic!
How'd he do that?
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Tag Archives: Photography
Us Day
October 1st is here and Ray and co were on the radio this morning encouraging everyone to get out there and take some photos! They were originally meant to broadcast from 11 to 1, but they locked themselves in the studio until 2pm! The discussion did degenerate into talking about handbags but it was great anyway!
I bumped into Ryan but he went his own way after half an hour. To be honest, it wasn’t a great day for me – frequent showers meant I had to wear a jacket, but between showers it was reasonably warm. Add that to a late night last night and I was struggling to keep my interest going. I have a few good shots which I will submit to Today FM, and eventually they’ll appear here too, but as Ryan said, there wasn’t much happening in the city.
It’s looking like a nice evening so I may take a walk about later around Blarney, you never know what might happen!
Edit: There’s a possible 51 shots from my walk around town that I’ll edit and submit. I have to work on them properly, but Bibblelite does a great job batch converting RAW files to Jpeg, and getting the colour balance right. Dcraw and UFraw both have problems with auto-wb on the Canon 20D in my experience.
Later still… I realised today (Sunday), that ufraw doesn’t keep the exif data when I import RAW files into the GIMP. If they check that for date and time info they might presume I was cheating and posting older images. I could tell them, “RAW images on request” I suppose.
Industry Push and Pull
Industry Push and Pull – great piece on how things are chugging along in the photography industry. Digicams get bigger sensors, DSLRs have to compete, full-size 35mm sensors won’t always be expensive..
Blending RAW images
This Flickr: Technique discussion talks about blending two exposures to maximise highlights and shadows.
It’s a simple but very effective technique, and of course if you use RAW files then you’ll already have an advantage over Jpeg.
"Us" in Ireland
Ray D’Arcy who presents a show on Today FM wants everyone to take photos next Saturday! The photos will be collected and printed in a book titled, “Us” with all proceeds going to charity. The book will capture a snapshot of Irish society that day.
To submit your photos, email them to us @ todayfm.com on Saturday. Photos will not be accepted before that date but I think they will accept contributions afterwards because not everyone has access to a computer at the weekend.
They’re targeting the mobile phone brigade too, and I’m sure Vodafone, O2, Meteor and 3 and ringing their hands in glee at the prospect of so much gprs data being transmitted across their expensive networks!
One issue I haven’t heard mentioned is that of model release forms. A release form is required if a photo is to be published commercially (although news items differ I think?). I emailed them about an hour ago but it was near the end of the show. Hopefully they’ll respond tomorrow.
I’ll be out taking shots on Saturday around Cork City, and perhaps elsewhere. I’d love to have a photo published! 
Later… looks like they ignored my email and text about model release forms. Hope they don’t get into trouble over that.
Anatomy of a Photograph
A picture is worth a thousand words. What if that photograph doesn’t tell the whole story? Interetsting analysis of how a photo can convey a publisher’s bias.
Little Channel Mixer Tip – enhanced green grass
- Load up an image with a lot of greenery.
- Fire up the Channel Mixer. I don’t know where it is in Photoshop, but in the GIMP it’s in Filters->Colors->Channel Mixer.
- Slide the green bar down a small bit and move the blue bar up a bit. Values of 100, -33, 47 worked for me.
- Green grass looks much more vibrant and healthy!
Converting RAW files to Jpeg, Nautilus Style
Further to my previous attempts to convert RAW files to Jpeg, here’s a Nautilus script based on this script. How do you use it? The g-scripts FAQ has more, although in Ubuntu I had to copy the script into ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/
This script uses “Zenity” to display a nice progress bar while the conversion takes place.
#!/bin/bash(while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
dcraw -c -a -n -h $1 | ppmtojpeg > `basename $1 cr2`jpg
echo $1
shift
done) | zenity --progress --pulsate --text "Converting RAW files to Jpeg"
21 Ways to Improve Your Creativity
It’s not just your camera, it’s your technique.
The letters mentioned here point that out:
Never forget that all the great photographs in history were made with more primitive camera equipment than you currently own.
Wedding Photography Inspiration
Someone posted a link to their first wedding job to the Canon EOS forum on dpreview.
The Wedding Photojournalist Assoc. was suggested later as a source of inspiration because those photos are so important to the client, they have to be perfect!
