How did he do that?

Been noticing this neon on the back of Twin Dragon for a while. Seems like it might be new. Anyway this large neon has a glow that is beautiful. I had hoped to get at least a hint of the Oriental shape of the front sign in the pic as well, but the angles were not there. I waited for dusk and a rainey empty parking lot. Found both last Thursday.

Technically I used program to give me a starting place and then went to a shorter manual setting. Something close to 1/2 a second, with an fstop in the middle to get booth the reflection and the sign in focus. I did bracket a bunch to find the right combination. As I was finishing up a couple of workers came out to have a smoke. They added the last element to the image.  Notice that I added a slight painterly filtering to give it what I hoped was a more romantic look.

How was it done?

Camera: canon 50d

Location:West of Boise

Technical stuff:  This is a deceiving image, I was going for a subtle enhancement. A couple of topaz filters were used. A very slight HDR effect and the sun flare was added with a star filter. If you look closely you can see that I also covered up parts of the house to make it look more rural.

Here it is with even more artistic license. A bit more cropping, saturation boost, and a gradient to the sky to add drama. Plus a very light use of the “pixel bender” filter from PhotoShop. It shows up in the sky.

]]> http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/15/truckin-photo-friday/feed/ http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/08/at-work-photo-friday/ http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/08/at-work-photo-friday/#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:53:07 +0000 editor http://boisee.com/blog/?p=5000 New commercial work.

This was a little technical. Balancing the bright light from the welding with the lights from the shop floor was tough. I decided to use the arc as the primary source of light and use it to power the scene. The secret here?, fill flash.  To increase the drama, a slight vignette was added in lightroom.

How did I do this?

Why this image?

I was drawn to the color and shape of the flower at at 1st. Then I noticed the illustration on the cup kinda matched.

Which Camera?

My iPhone 3g

What program?

I upload everyrthing I shoot no matter which camera in to Adobe LightRoom 3. It makes it easy to tag and sort. This one is labled, Dawsons, Paint, Flower.

I generally do a quick adjustment in LR, balance the exposure, etc. Often as they images are loading up. I also delete images here. I cull much more then I did in the beginning, however with hard drive space so cheap I wonder if I should keep them all. I delete mostly so it is easier to sort.

Altering/enhancement?

I often crop in Lightroom,  a lot of square images lately. Partly due to the market for coaster, put it also makes me focus on what is important to the artwork.

Once sized and balanced, I switch to PhotoShop. I create a second layer so I keep the original intact.

Using a tablet, and the track pad I use a combination of filters( love PixelBender) and brushes. This image was created using the mostly Art History Brush. Each part of the image is adjusted, changing the size and style of the brush on the fly. For instance I wanted the “Ham & Cheese” to be readable. so  a very small brush is used to “whoosh” them.

After the scenc is close parts of the lop layer are erased to bring in some of the details of the original. Mostly in the petals.

Then it is on to Selective Color to bring out the vibrance of certin hues. Here the yellows were enhanced and I almost alway add in a little more black for drama.

I save the file back to LightRoom and added a very slight vignette.

One more trick. I zoom way in and look for spots that don’t look right. The new clone brush is often an easy fix.

You don’t really know what you have till a print is made. Print it, take a close look and adjust if needed.

]]> http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/05/good-morning-cup-how-did-you-do-that/feed/ http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/02/masters-hands-photo-friday/ http://boisee.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/02/masters-hands-photo-friday/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:44:41 +0000 editor http://boisee.com/blog/?p=4992

One of my favorite photographs of all time!

I’m not normally a Black and White guy, but this one seems to work. I think I will try it on brushed aluminum.