Was reorganizing some of my storage last night and came across this sunset shot from a trip to Grand Cayman a while back and decided to revisit it and focus on some of the new retouching methods I’ve learned since then. I still clearly remember the day as one of the best sunsets I’ve seen, because the sky looked like it was on fire. Caribbean sunsets really are the best. Here’s a brief step-by-step on how I did it:
Lightroom Adjustments
- Straighten horizon
- Reduce the ‘Blacks’ slider to eliminate any black clipping in the histogram.
- Increase the ‘Recovery’ slider to recover some lost detail in the highlights, eliminating as much white clipping as possible.
- Adjust white balance
- Export to Photoshop
Photoshop CS3 Adjustments
- Create a ‘Curves’ adjustment layer to increase overall contrast.
- Create another ‘Curves’ adjustment layer only affecting the sky to add a bit more contrast to the clouds.
- Added a ‘Photo Filter’ adjustment layer, with a warming filter, to warm up the scene a bit.
- Dodged and burned a bit in the clouds and the suns rays to bring them out a bit more.
- Flatten image, convert to LAB color.
- Use the ‘Apply Image’ to give the color a bit more punch. Settings: Soft Light blending, ‘B’ channel. (The ‘B’ channel in LAB mode controls the yellow to blue spectrum)
- Convert back to RGB
- Duplicate background layer, use High-Pass Filter for sharpening (4px). For those not familiar with the high pass method, Leggnet has a great write-up.
- From there I set the high-pass layer to soft light, flattened the image, save and brought back to Lightroom and VOILA.
Sorry I didn’t get the chance to do screenshot throughout the process, was kinda late last night when I did it and I was jamming to get through it. As always, if you have any questions, hit me up in the comments. Oh and if you like it, don’t forget to add to your faves on flickr 
Though this would generally just warrant a mini-porn post, the sheer magnitude of this lens porn is astounding. Ya see, Canon is celebrating their 40 Millionth EF lens in production. Along with the press release, Canon included this drool inducing image of the entire EF lens line at high resolution. Try not to drool all over your keyboard folks, I know I did. Press release after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Canon Lens Porn Overload’
Via Photography Bay, it seems Canon’s German site posted some information for a short period of time, and though its in German, looks like 16 MP and due in June. We’ve been expecting an announcement around April 22nd or 24th from other rumors. More details as we get them. Check out the story and more screenshots here.
Update: Obviously nothing happened on either the 22nd or 24th… I’m not at all happy about it… I want my 5D Mark II dammit! We will of course keep you updated with any new developments.
After a recent discussion with a fellow photographer who is just beginning to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I was inspired to do a quick run-through of my process. I use Lightroom as my organizational tool as well as for most post processing and have since its initial beta. Its hands-down my favorite photography related application. It contains nearly all the tools I need to get my images where they need to be in a very intuitive interface, making the sometimes arduous task of organizing and retouching much simpler.
The following is Part 1 in a 2 parter about my entire Lightroom workflow. I’m using Lightroom 2 Beta, but everything in this post applies to the 1.x version as well, so no worries. Full workflow for organization and tagging after the jump…
Continue reading ‘CameraPorn’s Photoshop Lightroom Workflow Part 1: Importing & Organizing’
Via Engadget, Crunchgear and DPReview… it seem some super code geniuses have dissected the just-released Nikon D3 firmware update and found some information that led them to believe that a 24.4 Megapixel camera, presumably the D3x is on the way.
Engadget Coverage
Crunchgear Coverage
DPReview Coverage
If you’ve been shooting for any amount of time, especially when traveling, you have more than likely found yourself with the wrong lens for the job at some point. Scott Kelby, photoshop god, and publisher of Photoshop Insider, has just posted a very insightful piece on one of his recent experiences while traveling, where he continuously found himself with the wrong lens on his camera. You’ve heard me talk about packing the right gear for the job on occasion, and this just goes to show even the masters run into snags at times. A must read for any traveling photographer.
Check it out.
Rob Sheppard over at PCPhoto has put together a great article with tips on controlling contrast with highlights and shadows. Why use this method instead of just contrast adjustments or curves adjustments? Control, control, control. This method allows you to bring detail back in dark show areas as well as blown-out highlights.
Check it out!
Via Digital Photography School - No it’s not some magical solution, but these are some obvious and not so obvious tips to reducing or eliminating that pesky lens flare when shooting into a light source that can ruin your shot or cause a huge headache in post-processing.
Check it Out!
Via the Flickr blog, video has now been launched on Flickr! Pro users are limited to 90 second clips which play in a snazzy looking player. Batched along with it the maximum photo upload size for Pro members has been doubled to 20MB. I haven’t yet formed an opinion on how I feel about the video, being that I don’t shoot video, but I guess if anyones gonna do it right, it would be Flickr. Firstly, what do you guys think? Secondly, check out the full deets here.
Ed Z. over at f/1.0 did a great comparison between the localized adjustment tools in the new Lightroom and Aperture, highlighting the positives and negatives of each. Find out which one wins here.
