Category: HDR

One Week Left Before My HDR Workshop in Louisville KY

Posted on by Nick Roberts

My workshop will help you take your HDR skills to a new level and allow you to develop your own personal style of HDR Imagery. Only one more week to enroll. There are still a few spaces left so don’t delay.

http://outdoorphotogear.ticketleap.com/nick-roberts—hdr-photography/

Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, NM
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe, NM

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This image is a single frame faux HDR image processed in HDR Efex Pro and Aperture 3. I had to shoot handheld with available light which is why there is some noise in the shadows. I was willing to accept the noise in order to get the shot; sometimes we have to make compromises in order to get an image that we may never have the opportunity to shoot again.

ImageBrief Submission

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Twin Engine Dragster Burnout
Twin Engine Dragster Burnout

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I came across a site today that says it can get photographers some additional work. The name is ImageBrief and they list briefs from designers and other customers where they describe what sort of images they need along with a compensation amount. They take a 30% commission and the photographer receives 70%.

I submitted two images to a call for automobiles doing burnouts. I don’t know what will come of it but I thought about something Mike Moats said the other night in his talk at Outdoor Photo Gear about finding many small income streams to add to his annual earnings from his photography. I decided that submitting a couple of images that were sitting in my library made sense and might even be worth the effort.

Smokin' Burnout
Smokin’ Burnout

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Here’s a link to my work on ImageBrief:

http://www.imagebrief.com/photographers/nick

Old Taylor Images Revisited

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Reflected Memories #3
Reflected Memories #3

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This weekend I decided to return to some images I shot last summer at Old Taylor Distillery. I felt that I had grown greatly in my skills with NIK HDR eFex Pro 2 and wanted to see if I might improve on my earlier versions. I also wanted to make some corrections to the lens distortion with Photoshop CS5. I’m better satisfied with them after this round of processing and feel that I’ve learned a lot from going through this exercise. Just like using the camera requires constant practice to master it; using post processing software requires practice to become proficient. It all comes back to my manta “Practice, Practice, Practice” the more a photographer uses the tools of his/her craft the better he/she becomes.

Temple to the Whiskey Spirits
Temple to the Whiskey Spirits

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Reflected Memories #2
Reflected Memories #2

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Reflected Memories
Reflected Memories

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Temple to the Whiskey Spirits #1
Temple to the Whiskey Spirits #1

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One more shameless plug for my upcoming HDR workshop later this month here in Louisville. If you want to take your HDR processing to a new level this workshop is for you.

Nick Roberts – Using HDR Photography to Create Your Own Personal Style Tickets in Louisville, KY, United States.

Rusted Relics

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Rusted Memories of a Bygone Era
Rusted Memories of a Bygone Era

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While I was down in Alabama I took a drive out past the place where my Grandparents lived. The old house is gone now and I drove a little further down the highway to see if there was anything that might make a good photo along it. I came upon a log cabin, sitting in the middle of a field, that is covered in old metal signs and has several old gas pumps in the yard. This image is a detail of one of the pumps.

As is my practice today I shot a three bracket set of images for HDR processing. Another advantage of shooting brackets is the near certainty that one of the images will be a good exposure if I need something quick for a deadline. I don’t often need to do that but it sure is handy when the need arises.

The first thing I did was merge the three frames in NIK HDR eFex Pro 2 for tone mapping and detail adjustment. I used one of the Realistic presets as my starting point. I then took the HDR image into OnOne Perfect Photo 6 where I used a few different effects to add a vignette and enhanced some of the color. On e of the nice things about Perfect Effects is that it allows me to create layers and apply the effects in varying amounts. By stacking a few effects and adjusting the amount of each one from zero to 100% it is possible to get the feeling I’m looking for. After I had the image nearly finished I returned it to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the shadows and highlight, contrast and sharpened the image.

Keep Out
Keep Out

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This bird house seemed such a great subject with it’s weathered texture and the sign below it. I ran it through the same basic process and settled on this final version. I’m glad I started exploring the OnOne Perfect Photo 6 Suite again. In the future I will be using it more often when I want to convey more emotion than using only HDR techniques affords me.

A Couple of B&W Images from Decatur, Alabama

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Inside King Cotto's Temple in Black and White #1
Inside King Cotton’s Temple in Black and White #1

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This image was first created from a three frame bracket -2, 0, and +2 EV that I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro to tone map before returning it to Aperture 3 where I converted it to Black and White and applied additional contrast and sharpening.

Inside King Cotton's Temple in Black and White #2
Inside King Cotton’s Temple in Black and White #2

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This is simply a different crop on the first image in this post.

One final thing I want to share is this link to my HDR Workshop here in Louisville later this month.

http://outdoorphotogear.ticketleap.com/nick-roberts—hdr-photography/

I know it’s probably shameless self promotion but I really want to help other photographers and artists to develop their own HDR style.