Brushing the Dust Off

[azphotoguy]

Hey all - I finally found my way back to the camera, it has been far too long and many changes in life. I have moved a couple of times and been engrossed in building a career. I am now living in rural Arizona and loving life. I hope to be able to share some shots, here are two. crits welcome

My street after a recent snow and rain storm


A scene from the neighborhood, with some texture fun.


Be easy, it has been a while since I posted anything

[loydall]

Nice - do you have bigger versions of them? Maybe post them at 700px wide or something like that?

[frex]

Hi, AZ and great to see you back
...just a quick comment as I'm in a hurry...nice shots! I like the touch of HDR in #1 and the composing in #2...
waiting for more~~~

[azphotoguy]

Here are links to larger images. Thanks for the responses.

After the Storm
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2786/...d19ff70e_b.jpg

Cowboy
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/...d6f8ac97_o.jpg

[loydall]

Really like them both - after the storm has a wonderful feel to it. What PP did you use on it?

Good work.

[azphotoguy]

I took 3 shots of the scene, as the sun was very bright and the clouds were pushing a single exposure way off the grid. I really wanted to keep the whole mountain scene and be able to have the foreground prominent as well. In PS, I adjusted the Exposure slider to allow the clouds to look correct, then layed the second image over top that one, added a mask and painted out the sky of the second image to let the corrected one come through, Then I did the same with the third image and painted in the details of the road and other foreground items. Does that make sense?

Here is a shot of my place after an overnight snow. I used two images for this one, with the mask process.

Larger size
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/...fd350ba4_o.jpg

This is a shot of my grandson, lighting was rough, but he was really cute.

[frex]

Selected light correction is what I like too rather then using a HDR tool

[loydall]

Selected light correction is what I like too rather then using a HDR tool

Totally agree. The only bit of advice I would give anyone for using photomatix is this. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Photomatix > Remove.

Selected light correction is much better.

[ctranter]

I quite like photomatix's exposure fusion

[loydall]

Oh aye, yeah, it can be used ok but on the whole it's a tool that is used badly. I do actually like some HDR shots. This one: http://blog.photoshelter.com/hdr-76.jpg

I like that.

[azphotoguy]

That is the way that I like to get a final image close to what my eyes saw. The camera is always getting fooled by metering one light source, so multiple exposures allows me to paint away the over/under exposed regions to get the image that was really there.
Thanks for the input guys, I'll post some more images later on.

[WannaBe_80z]

Yeah just the blending hdr stuff in photomatrix at 100% is ****. But their new exposure stuff is pretty cool. much more subtle results. I haven't played with that program in months though so I'm sure there is even more stuff to play around with now.

it's all about not over doing it.