Photo Editing

The Tonbridge Squirrel

These chaps were so easy to photograph. As soon as I walked up to the canal near Tonbridge Castle they were everywhere. I was only there for a minute or two but got lots of photos.

I’ve given this one a comic feel with the help of a PS action.

Photo Editing

Into the light

This was taken on my trip to Hampshire and the New Forest where we found some wonderful donkeys . I was visiting my Aunt who lives with her dog in a mobile home very nearby. The couple in shot are my brother and his girl friend. As you can tell it was cold but you don’t know the half of it – it’s was really cold. We were having a quick wander around while my Aunt had a rest and over the hill we found a few horses and gusts of winds only normally found in the Arctic.

I took this shot and a closer shot but went with this one. From the original I tried to up the mood and atmosphere here.

Vote for the shot on PictPicture.

Flickr entry is here. And bordered is here.

Photo Editing

Future short and long term plans

I’ve started to create a list of future implementations to the site and the Squashy Frog Photography ‘project’ as a whole. The list looks something like this:

• A gallery is definitely needed. So far attempts to add a Gallery2 gallery to the WordPress site have failed and for the moment the site only has the not-so-great alternative in the way of the Portfolio pages.
• The dreaded adverts. Yep I’m planning to add some, though I hope to have relevant ads and they will only appear on the blog page. I already have Google Adsense ads on the RSS feed page and the previous blog site, and I’ve used Amazon Associates links to CDs, DVDs and books both here and there.
• Externally I need to reorganise my deviantART store page. I’ve enquired into whether they can bulk change things but apparently this is not possible. It means a tedious job of deleting virtually everything that is already there and added the rest of my portfolio photos. If too tedious then I’ll go elsewhere for my store facilities, but we’ll see. (any suggestions on this can be posted here). I plan to upload the bordered versions only for the moment. I will, however, add a comment to each photo saying that if you would like a non-border version please let me know and I’ll add it.
• Again externally or perhaps as an alternative to above I would like to set-up a stock photography account somewhere. I have a list of companies I’m considering: PhotoShelter, Fotolia, TriggerSnappy.co.uk and iStockPhoto. I have already signed up on PhotographersDirect and awaiting feedback on my first 2 submitted photos (but I’m happy just to been granted an initial account). Tips and advice on stock photography is most welcome.
• Small things to be done such as signature bar (to include my important social media links), business cards, letterheads and more important to all these a better logo. I’m no artist, well no digital painter, and so hope an old artist friend can help me out here.
• What site doesn’t have an FAQ (frequently asked questions)? Mine for a start! I have a hidden page already in place and will add to that when/if questions roll in but I hope to have a page that is linked off to articles, such as how I created the site, how I go about taking photos, etc.
• It’s a long way off, if ever, but I might be tempted to add a forum. The Revolution theme comes with ‘free’ one so it’s very possible. But there is no point until there is (if at all) a large amount of readers. It’s currently marked as a ‘nice-to-have’.
• The biggie is, of course, is the photography. I have tons of photos to process, I have plans to go out to events during the year (June to August being the busy time if I can) and I need to carry on reading through and performing all the articles and tutorials I’ve saved (for photography, Photoshop as well as web site, blogging, marketing, advertising, business and social media). I will continue to write up and blog background details on my portfolio photos, continue to participate on Flickr and my other photo-sharing sites, continue to digg and stumble, and of course continue to learn and enjoy everything along the way.

Expect updates to this list in the future.

Photo Editing

Moody morning

During one morning the light outside our house was amazing. It was very moody and mysterious, so naturally I fired off a few shots. This is one shot which I’ve toned in sepia. I changed the tonal colours as the original lacked colour anyway and so thought the image would work in a sepia-style. Other than that I’ve not changed anything, so that is what the light looked like. Cool eh?

What you’re looking at is the view outside my office window. I’ve set myself up in a small downstairs room – nice a cosy. I saw this light just after getting up and logging on in the morning. The fencing you see is the basketball court that is mainly used by the local kids on the estate as a football pitch. It’s a big bone of contention it being their but if the kids didn’t have such things then they’ll be causing trouble on the streets elsewhere so we shouldn’t complain. The court is built in the middle of the housing on a small patch of grass and you can see the trees on the remaining part of the field.

It was amazing, not sure what caused it, was it the low light coming through the gap in the houses or something else? – but it only lasted 2 mornings and it’s not happened since.

Blog entry at Dark Matter Magazine is here.

Flickr entry is here. And bordered here.

Photo Editing

Kaz at sunrise

 

A shot of my Golden Retriever, Kaz. He’s a poser as you can tell.
Seriously though, it’s very hard to capture him as he doesn’t stay still for more than a few seconds. At just 3 years old he’s is so full of energy especially when I take him out for his walk! I reckon he could keep going all day long!

But luckily on one of my early morning expeditions I caught him here. He was standing up on a mound near a pond while the Sun was coming up and the sky was a wonderful yellowy-orange. I think he might have heard a train coming and so went into ‘alert mode’ – Kaz loves to chase the trains, but so far he’s never caught up with one.

Again this is Edenbridge and at a place called Prettymans Pond. I’m not sure what it’s called that but it’s fantastic little pond and I’ve spent many an hour here practicing my photography and taking shots of the pond and the trees in every way I can think of. I’ve found that by going back to the same place over and over again you eventually see different angles for shots and find different ways of capturing the same subject. I’ve also tried to go here at different times of the day in different weather conditions. It’s been very interesting to see the changes these bring and I’ve certainly learnt how to look at things with a ‘photographer’s eye’.

This is a slightly adjusted photo (see below for original). I’ve cropped the top and left a little and increased the saturation throughout. Also I’ve lightened Kaz a little as he was a bit too dark. What does everyone think? I still think the sharp foreground branches are a little distracting?

In the process of creating this photo I thought of two questions:

Question 1: What is the best way to convert an image from Photoshop (PSD, TIFF) to JPEG? What I normally do is save the PSD as a TIFF then go into ACDSee and convert it there at max. quality to a JPEG (thus keeping the EXIF data). But this photo really highlights a problem (or two) I’ve noticed in that converting to JPEG reduces the saturation and darkens the brightness. Is there a better way to convert to JPEG to keep the exact tone of the image as well as the EXIF info?

Question 2: I had to refine and touch up the selection of Kaz in Photoshop as left alone he stuck out too much and his hair (especially his underneath) had a nasty line where one part of the image was dark+saturated and the other was bright+lightened. What’s the best way to blend these areas? I used the smudge tool on the selection layer and the result seems OK but is there a better way?

The original photo has been printed in the UK newspaper, Kent & Sussex Courier on 01-Feb-2008 (my first print!) and made it to onto Flickr’s Explore on Jan 8, 2008 at #434. The scan of the newspaper print is below:

Blog entry at Dark Matter Magazine is here.

Photo Editing

A morning walk in Kent

I’ve been selected to post on the Dark Matter Magazine site. I feel very honoured to be among such fine artists so have a look. So here’s a copy of my first post there.

This is my (currently) home town of Edenbridge. A small place in the UK county of Kent, bordering Surrey and Sussex. This particular shot was taken near Boxham Manor which is found near Marl Pit. I get a lot of my shots from walking the vast amount of farmland here. It generally means very, very early mornings to beat sunrise, scouting around a bit then picking my spot. Sometimes, though, the spot is already in my head from previously seeing it but this shot was a ‘there and then’ and happy how it turned out.

If anyone is interested I used this picture to create one of my first HDR-style images. It’s an interesting way to create a picture but I’m not quite there with the technique yet. Have a below (second image). To me the photo becomes more like a painting?

As a second attempt I also produced the picture below (third image), but felt that the top left part of the image was too dark (and dark in general). Again, each had slightly different tonemapping settings. Let me know which one you prefer? I’m quite keen on the original myself.

Photo Editing

Boxham Tree HDR

This is my second attempt at an HDR image. The photo shows the farmhouse at Boxham Farm in Edenbridge in Kent, UK. I took the shot while on one of my early morning walks in the local fields. As you can see it was a cold, cold morning but it’s worth it when you get such a great tree in the wonderful sunlight. Unfortunately I was only carrying my 18-50mm lens and could step any further back to get the whole of the tree in shot, so alas this won’t make it into my portfolio. But ignoring that I really like the shot and experimenting with HDR for the first time was fun. Flickr liked it too, so much so it made #11 for 22-Feb- 2008 on Explore!

The way I created this HDR (High Dynamic Range) shot was from one RAW file. I saved it out from Camera RAW to a TIFF file and created 3 images one at -2 EV, one at 0 EV and another as +2 EV (so 3 exposures, one dark, one normal and one light). I then dragged these into Photomatix, generated the HDR then tonemapped it. It took a bit of fiddling with the tonemapping settings but eventually I got the result above. The first thing I’ve noticed is that the clouds are far more dynamic but this is at the cost of a lot of added noise. I’m not sure I really like this style of HDR but it’s an interesting alternative and was fun to try. I’ll be posting a more detailed entry on how it was, so please check back soon.

The original photo is below, so please compare it.

Photo Editing

New About page

Along with many additions to the brand new site, I’ve added a new About page.  A copy is printed below and expect this to be tweaked several times before it settles down.   New about details:

I’m a keen photographer who is learning all the time. Photography is a passion and a hobby that’s taken over my life. I really enjoy taking photos but feel I have a lot of room for improvement. Saying that I can definitely see I’m bettering myself as time goes by. I brought my first digital SLR camera in August 2006 but got serious in October 2007.I would like to eventually combine photography with my other interests; traveling, cycling & pencil drawing. I can’t imagine anything more ideal. My main genres are landscapes, nature, animal, event and sport but enjoy any style of photography and will continue to experiment and explore as many areas as I can.

Along with photography I’m working with Photoshop and love fine-tuning and manipulating photos. I’ve found Photoshop very easy to pick up and use but, again, there is lots to learn.

I have been a regular visitor to flickr and have a large collection of photos, ranging from pure holiday snaps to my recent portfolio shots. For a selection of my images head over to my.photography collection.

I’ve created a several groups, the main ones are: -

World Tour: Do Before You Die:
flickr.com/groups/dobeforeyoudie
(a group of photos that’ll inspire people to travel the World)

Wonders of the World:
flickr.com/groups/wondersoftheworld
(a group of photos you think are ‘wonders’)

British Isles & Ireland:
flickr.com/groups/britishisles
(a group for anything relating to the British Isles and Ireland)

Learn by Picture:
flickr.com/groups/learnbypicture
(a group to post your photos to get feedback and advice from others)

How-to by Photograph:
flickr.com/groups/howtobyphotograph
(a group to post images and their details of how they were created for others to learn from)

Tutorial by Picture:
flickr.com/groups/tutorialbypicture
(a group to post images that are photography tutorials)

So please pop along, share you photos and post your discussions.

I also have a deviantART page where you can buy prints, etc. of my work, have a look here at koltregaskes.deviantart.com

My photos have been used by various people, such as a outside broadcasting company, a major credit card and potentially one photo will be used for a Royal Mail stamp in the UK for Summer 2008. So if you are interested in using my photos or my services please contact me. Finally, enjoy my site!

1. Frosty leaf, 2. Turn on the stile, 3. Bird of Prey, I am not, 4. Candle light, 5. Wimbledon Tennis Championships 2007, 6. Purple sky, 7. Perfect Kaz, re-visited, 8. Branch in the sunrise, 9. Captain’s armband, 10. Pond near Skinners Farm in Edenbridge, 11. City Hall, 12. Rally car racing at Goodwood Festival of Speed, 13. Gorillas at London Zoo

Photo Editing

Photography books

Here’s a list of photography and Photoshop books I’ve collected over the last few months, as you can see I’ve got a lot of reading. Hopefully these will be good reference material and give me ideas (links go to Amazon UK pages and I will add notes to each book later):

Photoshop

How to Cheat in Photoshop: The Art of Creating Photorealistic Montages – Updated for CS2
The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers
Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Classroom in a Book)

Photography

The World’s Wild Places
The World’s Top Photographers: Wildlife
Portraits (World’s Top Photographers S.)
Photojournalism: And the Stories Behind Their Greatest Images (World’s Top Photographers)
Landscape (World’s Top Photographers S.)
Photography and the Art of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography
Rock Faces: The World’s Top Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographers and Their Greatest Images
Love Your Dog Pictures: How to Photograph Your Pet with Any Camera
Through the Lens: “National Geographic” Greatest Photographs
Wide Angle: National Geographic Greatest Places
Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 15
The Essential Wildlife Photography Manual: Successful Digital and Film Techniques for Creative Photography

Below I’ve listed some travel and nature books that might come in handy. One reason I would to be a photography is the potential to travel around and capture all the interesting places, buildings, etc. out there. As a general role, Lonely Planet books are pretty much the best travel books around but I have a combination of LP, TimeOut and Rough Guides for several places:

Travel

Rough Guide to Ireland (Rough Guide Travel Guides S.)
The Rough Guide to England (Rough Guide Travel Guides S.)
The Rough Guide Map to London – Edition 2
England (Lonely Planet Regional Guides S.)
The Cities Book (Lonely Planet Pictorial S.)
The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World (Lonely Planet S.)
100 Great Cities of the World
The Rough Guide Map Ireland (Rough Guide Map S.)
The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations Presents London
The Rough Guide to London (Rough Guide Travel Guides S.)
100 Great Wonders of the World
The Rough Guide to Scotland – Edition 7
The Rough Guide to Britain (Rough Guide Travel Guides S.)
London by London: The Insider’s Guide (2nd Edition)
London (Lonely Planet City Guides S.)
Wales (Lonely Planet S.)

Nature

Light on the Earth

Photo Editing

Software list

This’ll be the software article then, OK, no points for guessing that I’ll chat away about software here. A list of software appears below:

ACDSee
– I’ve been using ACDSee for years, I have Pro Photo Manager 8. It’s a little slower than it used to be, especially when searching within large amounts of pictures but it’s still king in my eyes for picture browsing. I’ve even started photo manipulating in it.

Adobe Photoshop
– Yep, I don’t need to say much here. I need to learn this. I have a few books and a will grab any of the PS Focus Guides from Future Publishing when I see them but first thing is first learn the camera, learn the techniques then I’ll come to PS. I’ve downloaded the CS3 Beta and will get it up and running when I decide to have a look (I think I get 30 days free).

Corel Paint Shop Pro
– I’m kind of tempted to buy this, I used to use it back in the day (before Corel had its claws around it). I’ve had a quick play for a free trial recently, it still looks the business. Hmmm…

Picasa
– A simple, free photo viewer and editor from Google. Not used much, though. I think you can now share photos with it.

GIMP
– Again, not used much but it could be useful when I start getting serious with photo manipulating. I want to try the fake tilt-shift technique on some of my photos as the effects I’ve seen on other pics are amazing.

Also, I’ve tried a few photo sticking-pictures-together tools but so far I’m either too pants to photograph panoramically or I’ve not found a program that an idiot like me can use and get good results from.

I will be writing up a large list of all my other essential software (non-photography) so keep an eye out for a post on this.