Tag: Aperture 3

Trompe l’oeil at Buffalo Trace Distillery

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Trompe l’oeil at Buffalo Trace Distillery

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This image was taken last Saturday morning at Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort Kentucky. The mural on the building is a trompe l’oeil painting. The term trompe l’oeil means “to fool the eye” and this mural does just that. As you walk past it the perspective seems to change and it appears that the wall in the back of the mural moves from side to side. It is quite a sight to see and to experience.

I shot a five exposure bracket set +2, +1, 0, -1, -2 which I then merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. One problem I encountered after merging was with the clouds. I had the anti-ghosting set to 20% and the clouds were severely misaligned creating a very unnatural sky. I tried selecting a different reference image but the problem remained. I then boosted anti-ghosting to 60% but the problem was still there. My final attempt was to use the anti-ghosting at 100% which gave me an acceptable sky.

I applied a realistic preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and tweaked the temperature, black point and highlight sliders very slightly before returning the image to Aperture 3 for cropping and sharpening then I exported it for the web.

Morning On The Ohio River #2

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Cloudy Morning

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I have been trying to catch the sunrise each morning from the Big Four Bridge. Yesterday I arrived at the bridge at the same time that a cold front was moving in from the southwest. The weather forecast was for rain to start by 10:00 am and the sky was very active as the front progressed.  I decided that it might be interesting to shoot the river and the Kennedy Bridge as I watched the clouds build up.

I set up my tripod looking west from the ramp going up to the Big Four Bridge and captured several five exposure bracket sets of the Kennedy Bridge. Back in the studio I opened the morning’s shoot and found this image. I usually try to get several variations of my subject when I shoot as I have learned over time that the best way for me to evaluate a composition is in the studio on the monitor. I chose this image because I liked the way the handrail swept into the frame.

I used all five exposures +2, +1, 0, -1, and -2, which I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I used the default preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 as my starting point as I started my tone mapping. I liked the way the sky and bridge had turned out but the lawn had acquired an over saturated green tone that was in conflict with the blues and grays of the rest of the image. I dropped a control point into the grass and desaturated it slightly to get it back to what I saw as I shot the scene. I find that these control point adjustments work well when there is a marked difference in the colors in the image where they are applied. In this case the green was so distinct in the image that it worked like a charm.

I returned the merged TIFF image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the vibrance very slightly and applied some sharpening before exporting it as a jpeg for the web.

Willie

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Willie

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I chose this image of Willie because of the way that his hardhat covers his eyes. I like the way the figure is illuminated by the early morning sun and the bokeh of the skyline in the background. This is a straight photo with minimal processing in Aperture 3.

Above the Big Four Bridge Again

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Above the Big Four Bridge
Over the Bridge

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This is another shot from above the Big Four Bridge. In the background is the Kennedy Bridge that carries Interstate 65 across the Ohio River.

Solitude

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Solitude

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There is nothing extraordinary about this image I simply found the reflection of the bridge and the ripples of the rower’s oars very serene. I like the simplicity of the rower and his boat gliding along the river in the early morning light. I was using my 18-200 mm Nikkor lens that I had dropped a few days earlier which accounts for the lack of sharpness in the image. While I normally would reject an image that was as soft as this one I find that I like the impressionistic feel that the softness imparts.

I processed it in Aperture 3 without doing anything else to the image. I have sharpened it slightly which simply accentuated the soft focus. I adjusted the exposure and vibrance before saving it as a jpeg for the web.