Tag: reflections

Kentucky Derby Festival 2013 The Great Steamboat Race

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Great Steamboat Race 2013
Great Steamboat Race 2013

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This image is from the Great Steamboat Race here in Louisville, Kentucky. Each year, as part of the Kentucky Derby Festival, Louisville hosts the annual Great Steamboat Race which pits her own steamboat the Belle of Louisville against any other contenders that show up. This year was the first time people could view the race from the Big Four Bridge in Waterfront Park.

This image is a single frame post processed in Aperture 3 without using any plug-ins. I liked the repeating shapes of the boat’s wakes as a reinforcement of the bridge beams and handrail.

Great Steamboat Race 2013 #2
Great Steamboat Race 2013 #2

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This image received the same post processing as the previous photo. I created a preset Effect in Aperture 3 based on the first image and was able to apply it to many of the images I shot that afternoon. After applying the preset to an image I could go into the adjustment panes and make small tweaks to each image as needed without having to start from scratch.

The Belle of Louisville in front of Waterfront Park during the Great Steamboat Race 2013.
The Belle of Louisville in front of Waterfront Park during the Great Steamboat Race 2013.

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I applied the preset to this image as well. It’s a real timesaver to build an Effect Preset in Aperture 3 and then apply and tweak it as needed.

Sunset on the Ohio River after the Great Steamboat Race 2013
Sunset on the Ohio River after the Great Steamboat Race 2013

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This last image was also processed in Aperture 3 using the same Effects Preset I created but since it was later in the day I had to go into it and readjust many of the sliders to emphasize the colors of the sky and it’s reflection on the river. Still it was nice to have the preset as a starting point that shared the same overall feel as the earlier images.

Ohio River Sunset

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Ohio River Sunset
Ohio River Sunset

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This is a three exposure HDR using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for the merger and tonemapping as well as some exposure and structure adjustment. The three kayaks in the scene are from the middle value exposure which is the default frame for NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 when anti-ghosting is applied; I used a 60% setting which seems to work very well for preventing ghosts when objects in the scene are moving in one direction. The anti-ghosting also worked very well for the women walking along the landing at this 60% setting. After completing my NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 adjustments I returned the image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the separate color channels to get the image I wanted.

Beautiful May Evening

Posted on by Nick Roberts
May Sunset on the Ohio River
May Sunset on the Ohio River

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This image is from a photo shoot I did last Thursday evening after shooting at the Pegasus Parade earlier in the afternoon. I wasn’t ready to go home yet so we headed down to Waterfront Park to explore it further and capture some images with Derby Festival goers using the park. We walked around the park for a couple of hours and wound up on my favorite place to shoot Waterfront Park from, the Big Four Bridge. I had been up there the prior afternoon and evening to photograph the Great Steamboat Race but I really wasn’t happy with a lot of the landscapes I shot after the race ended. I wanted to capture the dramatic sky that was visible Thursday so we hung out on the bridge waiting for sunset.

I shot my normal three frame bracket set of -2, 0 and +2 EV for this HDR image. Today I made a change in my processing and started my post processing in NIK Sharpener Pro 3. I allowed the program to determine the amount of RAW pre-sharpening to apply and then I opened the sharpened RAW files in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I merged the three frames in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and kept the anti-ghosting set at 20%. I then applied the Deep #1 preset which I tweaked slightly to improve contrast and accent the highlights and shadows. Once that was finished I returned the HDR image to Aperture 3 where I spent some time adjusting the individual color channels as well as the vibrance and saturation of each one. Finally I applied my sharpening and a very light vignette to the image.

 

End of Tractor Week

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Kansas Tractor #2
Kansas Tractor #2

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Today’s post is the last one I want to share from my Kansas tractor series. Sometimes a detail is all that is needed to tell a story; I think that is the case with this image of an Allis-Chalmers grill shell and Allis-Chalmers emblem. The patina, the complex curves of the metal and the Allis-Chalmers emblem speak to an era long ago when industrial design was also concerned with aesthetics. The farm trucks in the background exist as metaphors for a time when America was struggling to survive the Great Depression and tractors such as this Allis-Chalmers were working to feed the world.

Because I was working with a single frame I used a preset in Topaz Adjust that I built especially for these images. I started with the Spicify preset that I dialed down to a level that emphasized texture and color; I then added a vignette and a border to the image as my finishing touches.

More Playing with Topaz Adjust

Posted on by Nick Roberts
He Retired in Kansas
Retired Kansas Farm Truck

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Here’s another image from Cawker, Kansas. I had a polarizer on my Nikkor 12-24 mm lens which really cut down on the glare and saturated the colors before any processing was done. Once again the sun was almost directly overhead but by using Topaz Adjust with the Spicify preset I was able to bring out the texture and patina on this old Ford farm truck. Spicify really enhanced the crazed windshield glass as well as the reflections inside the headlights.

The current version of Topaz Adjust has the ability to create layers of effects and control the amount and transparency they apply. Not only that, they have added a robust Vignette and Borders feature that didn’t exist in earlier version. I can also apply sharpening within the Topaz application which allows me to finish the image inside Topaz and eliminate the added step of returning to Aperture 3 for final sharpening.