Trey Ratcliff’s New Zeland Photography tutorial

Just finished watching Trey Ratcliff’s latest HDR video tutorial. Yes, I watch other photographers tutorials, and I do it a lot. I probably watch everything about HDR and landscape photography. It does not mater how good I think my photos are (or bad :)), there is still a lot to learn.

I like Trey’s videos, even if I don’t learn that much from them anymore. His videos are mostly made for beginners and he often goes through editing basics. Still it’s intersting to see how a another photographer edits his photos, and I always end out with few new ideas, on what to implement in my own photo processing.

So if you are a beginner in HDR photography, or somewhere around intermediate level, and you like Trey’s style, this is a must watch. If you are already quite familiar with HDR photo editing, you will probably find something new in his videos, but probably not that much.

More information can be found on the New Zealand tutorial page and if you decide to give them a try and buy them, use code “SIC-6591” for 10% discount :)

Dual screen wallpapers

I have updated the wallpapers section of this blog with something new :). This time, it’s 4 dual screen wallpapers, all with the resolution of 3840×1200 (so really big). These are best for two monitors, both at full HD, or smaller. Head over to the wallpapers page to download them.

Sunny side of Paris

This one took so long to edit, and I’m not even sure I’m satisfied with it. This happen’s when one takes photos in not that great light. But as I was in Paris only few days, and some of them it was raining, I had to take photos every opportunity I got. If I was at home, I would not even go out to shoot in such light. But the result is not that bad :)

I took this photo in May of this year, and I think it’s obvious where it was taken. It was my first trip to Paris on my own, and as I don’t speak a word of french, it was also quite an adventure. But luckily I prepare quite a lot before my trips, so after a day I felt completely at ease, with having no problems finding my way in Paris. And I know I will go there again, as soon as possible :)

For this photo, I had to take two series of 5 brackets, one with my hand covering the sun (check out my tutorial on removing lens flares to see why). I then created two HDR photos in Photomatix, each one from 5 brackets. I then blended those together with the original shots in Photoshop. Btw. I left the lens distortion in the photo on purpose. I had a version where I removed it, but than the photo lost the feeling of scale and depth, which I didn’t liked.

I just love this high up places. The view is always so great. And especially when the city lights up. This is of course from top of the Tour Montparnasse in Paris.

My trip to Paris this year was actually my second visit to Paris. First time it was 13 years ago, on a school trip. It’s really strange how I got a completely different feeling of the city now, than I had than. Probably I just notice more and different things than in my younger days :)

This is a HDR from 5 shots created in Oloneo Photoengine and than blended with original exposures in Photoshop.

Another Tuesday, another process post. For today I chosen a photo I took around midnight in Paris. As you will see, this were and easier edit, where I only had to correct few things.

So to get this result

I did the following edits in Photoshop (layers nubmered from bottom up)
1. I started with the +1EV exposure
2+3. darkened few areas from the 0EV exposure, and also pushed the 0EV towards darker tones with the levels adjustment
4. still few more areas corrected from the -2EV exposure
5. there was detail missing in the bottom left corner, so I added it using the high pass filter
6+7. added glow (veiw my glow tutorial)
8. added 0.7 exposure to almost the whole image. I do this quite often, as higher exposure makes the photo more colorfull and vibrant.
9. added more contrast to the bright areas of the photo

And that was all. Continue to the full post to see the original 0EV exposure

500px

I haven’t been posting much to my 500px account, but I decided I will put some of my favorite photos there. And yesterday I put up the photo Epic sunset form Paris (http://500px.com/photo/46334820) and it actually reached the first page of popular photos there for today :). So I think I will put few more up there :)

By La Defense

I already had another bridge photo ready, but than I thought that it will start to get a little boring, with all the bridge photos, so I decided for something different. So here is one of the La Defense in Paris.

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine and then blended with some of the original exposures. The HDR was created from 7 exposures.

Ok, I know it’s not called the Inception bridge (it’s called the Pont de Bir-Hakeim), but if you have ever seen the movie Inception, you know why it’s so much easier to remember it by that :)

I took this photo quite in a hurry one early morning in Paris, while I was on my way to a different location, but I just could not pass it without at least few photos. I got it a little of center, and even with a lot of corrections, it’s still a little off. But not so much that it cannot be shared :)

This is a manual blend from 5 shots, all blending just to brighten the area under the bridge.