Tag Archives: Nik

There’s a Chill in the Air

by

There’s a chill in the air.  I love it when a photo has some kind of “feel”, when you can sense what it must have been like when it was taken. I think this one creates that kind of feel.  The light was so blue, which made the temperature seem colder than it really was.  So, there’s not much to do when processing the image, probably the key thing is to get the white balance right.  In New Zealand we often set the white balance at cloudy even during sunny days.  For sure the further south you go the more this guideline holds true; there’s something strange going on up in the atmosphere.  Might that pesky hole in the ozone layer.

Nz landscape blue mountains 012These tools helped me work the magic:

Check-out my Topaz Lens Effects contest while you’re here.

Picking the right caption

by

Is the hardest part of photography, coming-up with a caption for the picture?  Sometimes it sure feels that way!  This image is a good example of confusing photograph description. The caption describes the feeling I had when I took it as opposed to a literal description of what it portrays.  The full moon seemed to have caused very high tides and that coupled with the strong winds, resulted in a wild sea.  It was as if the sea itself was just plain mad; crashing against the rocks, surging back and forth.

So it was a case of getting the camera setup in the car before a quick jump-out to snap 3 exposures.   It is pretty rare for me to shoot HDR sets without the aid of a tripod.  There was a good chance that the strong winds would have blown both me and the tripod over the edge!  To keep still I got down nice and low and stabilised myself as best I could.  It was pretty bright and so that helped, too.

By the way that bright thing is actually the sun setting not the full moon; see what I mean about a confusing title?

Please contact me if you’d like to buy or license this photo.

 

IMG7133HDR-M.jpg

These tools helped me work the magic:

Lord of the Rings mountain

by

I’m working on a series of photos based on a “Lord of the Rings” kind of theme.   This one seems to fit nicely into that; the gloom of the mountain and the sense of impending disaster.   Actually, its just a volcano with some cool clouds above it but  I can imagine, right?

The photo itself is pretty much straight-out of the camera with just some minor adjustments in Photoshop CS5.  Well, when I say “out of the camera” it was a set of three exposures, processed with HDR Efex Pro :-)  But it is photo realistic; what I actually saw!

For the black and white conversion I used Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2.  Version 2 is really worth the upgrade with the alibility to quickly add edge effects and treatments.

IMG2240HDR-M.jpg

These tools helped me work the magic:
Imagenomic Noiseware – Use the coupon “STEWARTBAIRD” at the checkout to get a 15% discount.  This coupon will work for all of Imagenomic’s great products.

Check-out my Topaz Lens Effects contest while you’re here.

For Topaz Lens Effects – use the code “stewartbaird” at the checkout to get 15% off this fantastic plug-in.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...