( I know its art its intentional, But I think it may still meet the guidlines for the photoconest If you really want I can post the POS original image )

 

Anyone else have critiques? I'm hoping to get several more "dusk" photo shoots in this month.

 

Kurt in case you were wondering here is the original.


Speed got the email, I'll try and get it to you soon things just been hectic on this end recently.

 

Huge difference! Getting good at the wheels. Still fake looking.

I've found out, it's not easy taking dusk shots.

 

Adding motion to wheels is easy in photochomp Kurt! The dark side is calling you...

 

Shhh! I'm trying to make it look like I put much effort into these

 

As much as I'm starting to hate HDR, I'm loving DRI. I finally spent the time to try out this DRI tutorial and it works very well.

I took a recent sunrise photo that had the proper dynamic range in RAW format, but couldn't get the curves to work for the processed image due to curve values needing to be set differently for various parts of the photo. Double processed the RAW file, one for the highlight details and the other for everything else.



Followed the DRI tutorial's steps, but found using Select->Feather worked better than Select-> Modify -> Smooth when creating the layer masks. YMMV. I still needed to touch up the layer mask some, but the instructed steps got me to 80%. The end result came out pretty good considering this was a groggy, much-to-early P&S camera photo.


Motor On, did you have time to try using the contrast mask steps I posted earlier on some Black Pearl photos? The effect can be rather jaw dropping IMHO.

 

I've got to try and get some more photos first (my last shoot I was more in close than anything else) and Pearl is likely to spend a few days having a tranny clutch and some other parts tended too, so it may be a while (but I should be able to snap a few of a loaner )

 

OK, first pics from the Canon.

Wife took these these morning. ALL she cared about was getting a pic of her dog all cutesy for Valetines Day so no flaming me ... I have no idea what she did in photoshop and really have had no time to even pick up the camera myself yet. Actually waiting for a wide-angle to arrive, maybe end of next week, to take car pics.

 

So wait she convinces you to sell the MINI and buy a Prorsche on the Happy wife premise and she won't even photograph it? (It wasn't a flame lol) So when do you get to play?

Here is some things I cleaned up. THink I'm going to go spend some time on my Speedometer face plate after this.










(It's only staying in the siggy line for a few hours)

 

Thats a fair question. I got car picts from the NIkon but nothing from the Canon. Weather last two weeks totally sucks. Nothing but rain since Thursday through tomorrow. Really sucky.

The fact is, when I come home from work, she wants me to fix whatever is "broken" or her comp (and she tends to "break" a lot of crap) and have me fix HER virtual friends ... computer problems:impatient ... oh fun and then day over.

Ordered the WA, should come after 1/18. I prefer that to get good car pics anyway

I have been playing with two things ...

I bought a colorvision spyder 2 for color management. Got both our monitors in sync, They map into the video boards at boot time and are used in the imaging programs

Learning how to use the Canon Raw SW which seems to do "some" things better than photoshop

 

Yeck, sorry to hear about Pearl's woes.

This photo below would be a great one to try the contrast masks on and skip the fugly HDR processing. Just my $.02.

 

My contribution.

When you convert car images to black and white, add a "cooling filter" to make them pop.

1. After doing my normal processing in Photoshop Elements 3.0, I use the "filtered b&w" tool in Google's free program called Picasa2 to convert to black and white.

2. I open that new image in PSE, go to Filter > Adjustments > Photo Filter.

3. I choose the Cooling Filter (82) and set the Density to 5 - 10%.

4. Voila, you get results like these 2 shots I took yesterday (provided you find yourself a gorgeous black Jaguar XK120 somewhere nearby):





(I probably should post "before" and "after" shots, but I didn't save any "befores.")

 

While adding a little filter after the BW conversion does help some (you'll notice many of mine carry blue or sepia or warm filter) I'm learning more and more that just pulling the saturation truly sells yourself short and ising a variety of other methods to control how the image goes to BW can provide you with some significantly better results. I'd highly reccomend you pick up this months Sutterbug if you're into BW photography conversions from DSLRs.

Speednut that photo was one I took a year ago and got many compliments however the front of the MINI was largely contrasted out I tried to use the layer push some pull some to make the clouds a little more vivid and the car a little less bland, I think I need to go back the PSD less the opacity of th layer and maybe even do some gradient erasing to eliminated the starkness if the editign and make sublte but still add the detail.

Here are a few from the snow today, more snapshots while driving and hefty cropping than anything else, I also masked an oulled to BW to help the images a little bit.

 

True dat. I typically use Calculations, or I'll convert the channels to layers, stack 'em up, and vary the blend modes & opacities until I get what I want. Some people use the Channel Mixer with good results.

 

Channel mixer has beenthe easiest for me so far, I keep the article handy for now so experimient a little here and there and have been gettign some neat effects.

 

A lot of people go that route and achieve excellent results. I learned the Calculations trick years ago at a Scott Kelby "Down and Dirty" seminar. I might add that you can use Calculations to create really useful layer masks.

My #1 Photoshop Tip: Wacom tablet

 

The second one looks like Selenium toning that I used to do on my Kodak Elite prints. Very nice indeed!

 

Various dusk proessings



Dusk Color touch ups


then Channel Mixer (This one was with a red bias)


Or desaturate it with a 7% cooling filter


OR add another layer with a different balance of colors


and then desaturate it and add a 7% warming filter


Hope that helps explain some of this

And another "Dusk" shot

 

some great tips in here...

 

I can finally post it!

 

A dirty car?

 

Heck ya; I actually drive my MINI

But seriously let me hear some critiques on any of the numerous photos I've posted in the past month or so

Something worth reading regardless of skill level. (and its free too!)

 

OK, not cold today, no snow But no way to wash the car, not detailed tires and brake dust.

so my first pics.

 

Something I got off another forum, thought it might the kind of thing to think about after oyur shots so you begin to think about it before pressing the shutter.
Chows here's my C&C (Since I can't get any for my photos anymore)
1. Ask yourself why you decided to crop it as you did? I'd either take a step back or make a clear point you want to focus on (like a claiper for instance)
2. Funky angle and the black makes you tires disappear, which I find almost disturbing. Also the lack of background, well now my eyes are tracking every tiny reflection trying to determine if this was your driveway or a parking lot, so you've lost my attention on the car.
3. Again with the black and again a distracting break on the lines of the car in the rear, perhaps take a step back again or get lower and use that curve on the rear to frame the bottom half of the photo My eye gets lost the photo doesn't naturally guide it anywhere.

1 & 3 look like you just kinda pointed the camera down while standing next to the car, which yes you can get some goood lines and shots that way, its much harder because in these examples you aren't showing me anything I wouldn't normally see which leads a kinda blah feeling about them.

And for all three, these look like they where realtively midday shots which tend to make things more harsh, and those reflections of legs shadows, rims of adjacent cars stand out more, and you have some hotspots on the body panels that are distracting and shadows that make the wheel in #1 look odd.

Hope they help and you can see them as constructive. Looking forward to what you show us as you get used to the new gear.