The Digital Photo Guy

Yes Virginia, There Really Are Burrowing Owls

After 3 fruitless years of searching, I finally found and photographed burrowing owls in the wild. In fact, within one hour, I saw 4 of the cute critters and managed to get a photo with two in one frame.

The originals of two are shown below. If you can’t efficiently and effectively create the above photos in a few minutes with Photoshop Elements, you’re not getting full value out of PSE. Notice how I removed twigs in front of the owls for a better photo. The third was just cropped and had curves adjusted.

Desert Spring Wildflowers

The temperatures started warming up in the desert on Friday, 3/12 so we should be in peak bloom this coming Saturday and Sunday. There’s still space in the workshop. Remember, past students receive a 10% discount on all classes.

Here are some photos from last week. We used wide angle lenses to make small flower patches appear huge as well as telephoto lenses to “stack” the scene so everything seems closer together. The students were most amazed at the world as seen through a macro lens and learning to control depth of field in macros.

For a great place to stay, I recommend a cute trailer at Leapin’ Lizard RV Ranch in Ocotillo Wells, just 15 miles from Borrego Springs. I discovered it this past week and am totally amazed at what Deborah and Siegfried Kunkler have built there. They even erected two 40′ WiFi antennas so the whole park has free WiFi. Best of all, the trailers are as little as $60/night.

Topaz Labs FREE Webinar, April 7

Eric Yang of Topaz Labs will present a FREE webinar on Wednesday, April 7 at noon Central Daylight Savings Time (CDT). That’s 1PM EDT, 11AM MDT and 10AM PDT. To register, click here. If there’s still room, you’ll receive an e-mail confirmation in a few days.

If you belong to a camera club or other group, you’re welcome to project the webinar on a screen for the whole group to view.

FREE Topaz Labs Webinar

Eric Yang, Marketing Manager for Topaz Labs will present a free webinar on April 7 at Noon CDT (Central Daylight Time). Eric will demonstrate how to use several Topaz plug-ins and answer questions. There will also be some cool give-aways so be sure to register ASAP. There’s limited seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Click HERE to reserve your spot. You can have as people as you want on one computer so invite your whole camera club, neighborhood or synagogue and project the webinar for all to see.

Using One Tool To Clone Over an Object

When first learning photo editing, students often learn one tool at a time and tend to use that tool for everything. Sometimes, that’s not a bad approach. For example, some use the Marquee Tool to select everything but quickly discover that perfect rectangles and ovals rarely exist in real life.

Today’s Video MMT hopes to speed up your “Ah-ha!” moment by demonstrating how the Marquee Tool can be used to remove an object from a complex background. The first photo below is the original, the second is a close up of the area we want to fix and the last is the final result. View the video in the Archived MMT area (free registration required).

Russian Traffic

I’ve noticed a huge surge in traffic from Russian IP addresses. I don’t believe my charm and skills are that appreciated by Russians so I can only conclude that there’s a big push to hack and scam US sites. I’m going to block all Russian and Chinese traffic but, before I do that, if there are Russian or Chinese readers who actually visit my site for benign purposes, please let me know.

I produced three Video MMTs over the last 2 days which I’ll be releasing while I’m leading the Spring Desert Wildflower Photoshoot Workshops this weekend and next. There’s still time to register so sign up now. When’s the last time you went to the desert to photograph wildflowers? Here are some photos from last year.

While taking a break, I came across the following videos and thought readers would get a kick out of them. This is the perfect, non-violent yet extremely painful, costly and effective revenge against an uncaring corporate giant.

Last Song Released

Most everyone remembers a YouTube video that went viral last year about a Canadian guitarist whose Taylor guitar was broken by Unitd Airlines. The airline refused to do anything until over 50,000 people viewed the video in the first 24 hours. By the time the video finally peaked, it had been viewed over 8 million times, a PR nightmare for UAL.

In the ensuing 7 months, UAL has (ineptly) tried to mollify the artist, Dave Carroll, but never really “got it” regards customer service. Carroll reports in his last song (he promised to write 3 songs about the experience) that he still hears daily from people who have been badly treated, mistreated or simply ignored by UAL. Click to read more and see videos

UPDATE: Just heard from Roger at LensRentals.com (see end of MMT) that they have a 5% discount going on right now. Sounds like a great excuse to rent a wide angle or macro or both and join me at the Anza-Borrego Desert Wildflower Workshop next weekend (3/13 & 14) or the following weekend (3/20 & 21). If you rent a lens from LensRentals.com and e-mail a copy of your invoice to me, I’ll take 5% off the price of the workshop. (Cannot be combined with other offers or discounts).

Duh! forgot to include the discount code: PIXEL5. Somedays, it’s better to stay in bed. I don’t know when the discount promo ends. Send LensRentals an e-mail if you think you’ll use it in the near future.

Yeah, yeah! I know today is Friday and this is a Monday Morning Tip but I won’t have time this weekend so it gets posted today. If it bothers you, just wait until Monday to read it. Sheesh!

Topaz Labs releases Adjust 4

Until recently, I pretty much used plug-ins to make specific adjustments, not create a final result. When I bought the Topaz Labs bundle at Photoshop World, I was more interested in using the tools to help me tweak photos, not produce a finished, final image. But, as they say, “Even an old dog can learn new tricks if properly motivated!” (OK, so I just made that up) Maybe it’s just laziness in my old age but I’m beginning to like several presets in the new release of Topaz Labs Adjust 4. Some were available in Adjust 3 but I never really explored them thinking I could do better than some geek engineer who’s probably never seen sunlight, much less a dSLR.

Here are some side-by-side examples of Adjust 4 presets versus my normal workflow:

One photo in each set (I’m not telling which) is my normal workflow. The other is a Topaz Adjust 4 preset where I simply clicked a button and said, “Do it!” There’s no right or wrong but do you have a preference? BTW, one photo is an HDR produced with DP-HDR. Click for more examples

Shoebill Stork Video

Anyone who’s taken a Wild Animal Park “Hands-On” Photoshoot with me knows of my fascination with the shoebill stork whom I’ve nicknamed “Fred”. He’s an interesting bird, not just for his massive beak but also because he almost seems to be observing the people who stop to view him. A friend and former student who is an aviculturist sent me this link.

Monday Morning Tip

Click to read the rest