Tag: art

Review of: “Accurate Color” Audio Video Text Book by Herb Paynter

Posted on by Nick Roberts

id509451372

I’m always looking for more information on the subject of color in photography. Recently while wandering around in the “rabbit hole” of the web I came across Herb Paynter and his blog “The Way Eye Sees It”

http://thewayeyeseesit.com/

I read a couple of posts and found his writing to be fresh and informative. I downloaded a free eBook of his titled “The Elements of Digital Color Photography” and saw right away that Herb had done a great job explaining some of the fundamentals of how and why we photographers use color in our work. With simple language and excellent illustrations he covered a lot of ground and clarified a few things I wasn’t aware of.

After reading the free eBook I decided to read another of his books “Accurate Color” which is a much more in depth exploration of  the processes involved in color photography and the whole process from camera to final output of the image . Herb explains how the various systems in photography and printing interact and why they respond as they do. His descriptions and illustrations make the material easy to comprehend while also being entertaining.

The version I have of the book is titled ” The Enlighten Project: The Accurate Color Interactive Audio Video Text Book”. It has the complete text of his text book by the same title with the additional features of an audio feature that provides narration of the instructional pages and chapters and 1.5 hours of animated visuals and illustrations that further explain the concepts he talks about. There are review questions after each chapter to help you check yourself to see if you have gotten the info as well as a list of the top ten takeaways from each chapter.

I recommend that anyone who wants to improve their photography get a copy of “Accurate Color” and learn the fundamentals of accurate color and how to achieve the best results when applying the basic principles of the digital photography process from beginning to end. I know that I’m glad I chose to read these books and that I added to my knowledge of digital image making.

Here’s a link to the book:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

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.