The Digital Photo Guy

Topaz Labs Adjust 4 for Portraiture

This weekend, I had the opportunity to photograph two perfectly delightful sisters at the Deer Park Winery Auto Museum. Nicole works at the winery and brought her older sister Paola. We only had about 40 minutes so it was a bit rushed but, for a POC (proof of concept) shoot, it turned out well. My idea was a hip-hop look to complement their dark Latina complexion, dark eyes and dark hair. Being 20 somethings, the concept worked well for them.

Keep in mind, we didn’t have a MUA (make-up artist) and we were in a dark, cavernous barn-like building crammed with dozens of vintage American convertibles. I wanted to show some of the background but not enough to distract. In the middle photo of Nicole, my fill light, for some reason, didn’t create a catchlight in her eyes. I may try to add one with PS. Tell me how I did overall. Click here to read more

Your Turn to Critique Me

I won’t have time to update the site this weekend so here’s something to occupy you until next week.

Here are my entries for the 2010 San Diego Fair. The juried photography competition draws about 3000 entries each year of which about half are accepted. Just being accepted is the first step. Placing 2nd, 3rd, 4th or Honorable Mention is the next step and winning 1st and/or Best of Show are the ultimate goals. Tell me your opinion in the poll at the bottom.

The first is titled Open. The second is Book of Accounts and the 3rd is Dinner with the President.

All the photos were processed to some extend with Topaz Adjust4. I tried to emphasize what was already there instead of slathering on weird effects or hide some deficiency in the photo. Each was acceptable as-is but Topaz Adjust4 enabled me to oversharpen or soften or saturate without inducing artifacts.
Click to see more entries

Student Photos from Anza-Borrego

Here are the first 3 student photos from the Spring Desert Wildflower workshop in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The first day covered wildflowers as elements in landscape photography. Notice how we shot from a low angle to make the flowers appear more numerous and dense than they really were. Click to read more

The Digital Photo Guy Blog Gets a Facelift

This is the 6th year for this site. During the first 4 years, it was a static site that was rarely updated because making changes was excruciatingly slow, complex and costly. In 2008, I resolved to fix the problem and commissioned a web developer to develop a new site that I could easily and quickly update myself. He recommended WordPress and the initial implementation took just 6 weeks. As soon as he was done, I started making changes and quickly learned how to do just about everything by myself. I’m no rocket scientist but WordPress makes everything simple and straightforward.

Now, a year after the initial launch, a new static home page has replaced the previous dynamic home page. A dynamic home page was fine in the beginning but, now, with so many articles and posts, it was quickly becoming unwieldly. Readers couldn’t easily find the information they sought. A static home page can act as ”street signs” to help point readers in the right direction. As you can see, some of the signs are still not working. That’s because all the MMTs, posts and articles weren’t always correctly or fully tagged.

Tagging the material at this time would be counter productive because each update would generate an e-mail notification of an update and readers wuld be innundated with e-mails.

Starting in 2010, I’ll be more careful about tagging each MMT, post and article so readers can quickly find all material pertaining to Cameras/Lenses/Gear, Photo Editing and Photography.

In the meantime, the existing tags (right side of main blog) can help you find specific articles or MMTs. You can also use the Seach box along the right side of the main blog.

A website is a never-ending process. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment here. Good light, good memories and good luck in 2010.

Video Monday Morning Tip – 12/14/09

This week is a continuation of last week’s VMMT on Topaz Lab’s ReMask2 masking plug-in. However, in my enthusiasm, I skipped a few intervening steps so it’s a bit like Star Wars where later episodes were aired first, followed by earlier episodes. To quote Jean-Luc Godard, “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” This VMMT shows how to use brushes to touch up a mask where fine, fly-away hair is too complex to mask. As usual, the Video MMT is in the Tips & News area. Registered users can use the password they received when they registered. To register, use the form to the right.

The above photo on the left is the original. You can see how the hairs are too fine to be easily selected. The photo on the right shows the final result after touch up with hair brushes. Click to read more