Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

Yesterday I took a quick trip over to Watson Lake in order to take a few photos of the Granite Dells from the shoreline. I couldn’t stay long, work was calling. Not literally of course, but you get my meaning.

Now that I’ve started playing around with some new techniques (7 Point System & HDR) it seems I can’t find the time to go out and shoot super interesting subjects. Sure, I’ve gotten a couple of neat photos lately, but I want to roam around more. Plus I’m not getting home from work until after 7 every day.

That means I’m missing sunsets, missing out on the crazy lizards running around here, and totally taking a pass on the gangs of Quail moving around the park. You’ve got to watch out for those quail gangs….they wear their colors you know!

Thursday will be a day of rest, but I don’t think it will be super restful. Groceries, laundry (I miss my own washer & dryer), cleaning, maybe a nap. I hope somewhere in there I find the time for a few photos. I’d love to get North of Paulden and do some larger expanse shots. Or maybe down to Skull Valley again, I have a few photo ideas there.

If I’m wrapped up all Thursday maybe Friday will be a fun day. At least there are 2 days back to back off. Haven’t had that in a little while!

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten adding other favorite links. Yesterday’s were a start. Next week I’ll include some more photo links and blogging links (plus a few more financials). But not today. I’m already running behind, and work starts earlier today.

Looks like I won’t go off for a few quick photos this morning…..bummer. Maybe I’ll find time this evening as I’ll be home before 7 tonight.

I’ve gotten many questions privately regarding the HDR process. People really want to know how the process works. I can completely understand.

Months ago I found a web site talking about HDR. I was investigating the process after speaking with another photographer about how I shoot. He suggested I look into HDR, as it was a technique that he thought would work with some of my landscape shots in the Dells. Boy howdy, he was right!

So, today I thought I’d talk about the process, and about the 7 Point system as well.

The current photo to your left is an edited photo (not HDR) that I used the 7 Point System with. I only spent about 5 minutes on it. The shot was a little too dark, the white balance was off a bit as it was an extremely overcast day, and very little blue showed through in the sky. You’ll see the original photo next, and I think you’ll agree it was a touch washed out.

The 7 Point System is extremely helpful in knowing what to do in Photoshop. For this photo I worked in the Camera Raw editor. Nothing more. No masks, no layers, no painting with light. I could definitely improve this image some more, but I didn’t want to spend a long time on a quick shot for this post. Realistically I could have used Photoshop Lightroom’s Develop module and done the same quickly.

So, where did this edited photo come from? It was the 0EV exposure I shot as part of a series to create an HDR. When creating HDRs you want to take at least 3 photos at different exposure levels. With each exposure you get different levels of detail. A -2 EV will give you a lot of dark space, but the bright space making it through is usually not clipped. Your 0EV shot shows a bit of everything, but might not have the most extreme contrast. Finally, an over exposure will blow out your highlights (clouds and sky) but it provides a more accurate depiction of things like the foreground in a sunset photo.

Normally when you shoot a sunset the foreground is DARK. Or it’s a silhouette. Whatever the case, in order to get the detail of the foreground you need to over expose. When that happens the sky turns to junk. So, you need a few exposures.

The exposure to the left is the 0EV (on my light meter) shot. Pretty dark and ominous. Lacking a lot of color and detail. Did I take a bad photo? Nope, this is what the scene was due to lighting. Did it look like that to me? Nope, I definitely saw it different than the camera.

The first photo on this page was derived from this exact picture. Ah, the 7 Point System really can help with a “bland” photo. I’m so glad I’ve finally realized that using Photoshop isn’t some evil thing. Instead, used right it can really help you accurately recall a scene that your camera sensor just couldn’t bring in the whole way.

Our cameras always have a fixed aperture you know. You can select the amount of light and your exposure time when shooting a subject. Now, let me ask you, when you view a scene does your “aperture” in your eyes stay the same? No. Your pupils dilate, change the light coming in, and your eyes get to readjust for all sorts of light levels. It’s hard getting the whole scene with one fixed setting at a time. That’s where HDR comes in. Oh, and by the way, I’m not expert, but I get it, I finally get it, and it’s cool that someone realized blended exposures could show the viewer more!

Next I’m going to show you the -2 and +2 exposures side by side. Those two shots plus the one above went together in order to create the final HDR.

As you can see, the over and under exposures wouldn’t make for great photos alone. The under exposure (super dark one) shows you no details of the rocks at all. But take a look at the sky. Darker blues, darker elements to the clouds. The sky’s detail comes through a little more.

The over exposure on the other hand shows you all of the foreground. You really get to see the rocks of the Dells. But the sky’s detail is almost washed out. Not great. Maybe the 7 Point system could help with the brighter shot, but the dark one wouldn’t get too far……

The fun part is the fact that if you combine the 3 exposures (-2, 0, +2) you can get all the detail out of the 3. Take a look at the last image in this post and you’ll see…..

This image is the final HDR image. A shade different than any of the pictures you’ve seen so far, yet it’s just a Tone Mapped combination of the 3 images. It doesn’t look like any of the original shots, but it was derived from all the color and light information in the 3 photos.

In addition to combining the photos you also get to tone map the shot. You can increase the color strength of the image in order to get each color to really pop. You can reset the White and Black points to enhance bright areas and shadowed areas. And you can work on the contrast in the photo through a Micro Contrast and Micro Smoothing tool.

I currently use the Photomatix Program, and the Photomatix Plugin in my Adobe Photoshop CS3. There are other programs out there for HDR generation, and each has its own name for tone mapping, but all of them do the same thing.

So, not only are the photos blended, they are then worked on in the Tone Mapping within Photomatix. I can push the colors up or down, enhance light and shadow, and make my own attempt to really represent how my eyes saw the scene. And if I want I can also enhance what I saw. It was pretty drab out there when I shot this photo. Nice to take the drab out of it.

Since I arrived in Prescott I’ve been fascinated by the Granite Dells, Granite Mountain, and most of the national forest surrounding the area. I’ve been amazed by the scenes around me, and I’ve shot too many photos of the area. Many of those shots end up on the blog.

Over the year I’ve had many comments from readers about the area. Everyone gets that the rocks are amazing and the area is beautiful. Many people have commented on the neat photos coming out on the blog. And I’ve been glad to share the area.

The disappointment for me has always been the fact that none of the photos I’ve posted have truly captured how vast some scenes are. The Dells always seemed flat in my regular photos. While readers get to see the rocks I always thought they didn’t really see the rocks. With the HDR technique I think I’m finally showing you how dramatic the scenes are here.

Well, hope you enjoyed my longer explanation of HDR. If you’re interested in trying this out feel free to drop a comment with your questions. I’ve posted links to HDR tutorials before, but I’ve found every one lacking. I finally found a book that really helped me understand more about HDR. It’s not a “simplistic” book. A little technical actually, but if you can push through the technical I think you’ll find some great pieces of information. The book is, “The Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography,” by Ferrell McCollough.

By the way, if you’re a full-time RVer who is now interested in these photo techniques…….don’t blame me for filling your rig with books. It’s happened to me, and I’m finding ways to make space! And if you’re going to fill your rig with books, make sure my book is among them!

As most readers know, I’m a “Full-Time RVer”. Sure, the Airstream isn’t rolling all over the country, but that doesn’t define a full-timer at all. Folks in this category live in an RV full time. That’s it. The travel is a bonus.

Right now the travel would be painful given gas prices. So I’m happy to be a stationary Airstreamer at the moment. I sure would like to go to a few places to take photos, but I’ll wait a while. I wonder when my Titan can be solar powered……?

If you’re not familiar with Airstreams, or more specifically my Airstream, you don’t have the largest amount of space to work in. My Airstream is 25 feet long and 8 feet wide. For those who are mathematically challenged or are unsure about devices known as “calculators”, 25×8 yields 200 square feet of space. My first apartment by myself was an “efficiency”, and it was 450 sq ft. You can’t fit a ton of stuff in that amount of space, but that’s what I’ve got to work with.

With my spacial constraints I still manage to have every amenity I need. My kitchen sink, a cute stove, microwave, a claustrophobic shower, etc. And with all of my small tech devices I cover everything you can imagine for an office, entertainment center, etc. Part of my gadget hoard includes a full set up for photo development while on the road or at rest.

Probably not too shocking. You’ve seen many photos out of the Airstream Chronicles site, you know I post regularly, and I talk about watching DVDs and other fun stuff.

Given all the recent HDR photography I thought it would be useful to talk about what goes into my portable photo lab. What does it really take to produce cool travel images, how much space does it take, and how does it fit in to a full-timing lifestyle?

So, what’s in my little bag of tricks? Here’s the list:

• Macbook Pro: This is the computer I use every day. I’ve been using it since the Spring of 2006. It’s my entertainment center, productivity center, e-mail box, web device, blogging tool, etc. It’s also the hub of my photography setup.
• Photoshop CS3: Photoshop has to be one of my most used programs lately. Photo editing, resizing, & retouching all take place in Photoshop.
• Photoshop Lightroom: Probably the coolest photo management program I’ve ever seen. When I off load photos, Lightroom is the program I choose.
• Photomatix Pro: This is my newest program. If you like the recent HDRs I’d suggest checking out Photomatix.
• Canon 40D: The newest addition to my camera bodies. I picked up the 40D because it has a built in image sensor cleaner. If you’ve ever lived in AZ you’ll understand why the sensor cleaner is necessary…..dust is everywhere, all the time.
• Canon 30D: Ah yes, I’ve got a 30D as well. I’ve been extremely happy with this camera. My only complaint is the fact I keep having to clean the image sensor thanks to all the dust here. It’s now my “indoor” camera (you know, macro photos….).
• Canon SD550: The SD550 is no longer in production. I bought this “Digital Elph” years ago. It’s a wonderful little camera. It’s also super small. Many of my shots during my travels in 2006 were taken with the 550. Simple little point and shoot camera for those moments when you don’t feel like breaking out a big camera. If you want something similar check out the SD1100.
• Canon Selphy: This is my tiny portable printer. I make cute little postcard prints with it. The color quality and speed of this printer are amazing!
• Canon IP100: I just purchased this super small photo printer within the past 2 weeks. With some of my latest photos I wanted to print 8×10 and 8.5×11 photos. The IP 100 is ultra slim, and the color quality is fantastic. I’ll write a longer review on the printer after I’ve passed the 1 month ownership marker with it.
• Crumpler Bag: My newest camera bag is a Crumpler. A compact and stylish carrying case.
• Lowepro Camera Backpack: If I need to carry “everything” the Lowepro is the bag I use.
• Canon Lenses: I have too many lenses….. My primary lens is a 28-135mm Image Stabilized lens. I also have a 17-85mm IS lens that came with my 30D (it’s my second favorite lens). The bulk of the photos you see here have been shot with the 28-135 or the 17-85. My other lenses are “specialized” for only certain shots.
• 2 500GB MyBooks: Currently I’m running 2 Mybook external hard drives. My Lacies have been filled, and they’re now stored away. The MyBook drives store all of my photography, ITunes library, system backups, etc. 1 drive is the primary drive, 1 drive backs up the primary drive. These drives take very little space, and they store so much.

There’s the list in a nutshell. Amazingly enough, this stuff takes very little space. My cameras and lenses fit into my Lowepro & Crumpler bags. Between the two bags everything is put away all the time. The bags fit under my credenza in the Airstream, and there’s plenty of room for more stuff to fit under there as well. The printers can both be stored in an overhead compartment and plenty of room is leftover for other items. Finally, the Macbook sits out on my dinette.

If you rounded up all these items you could stack them on my couch and leave room for 2 people to still sit on the couch. Pretty small amount of space for all the equipment does, don’t you think?

Do I have other little odds and ends? Sure I do. I got almost everything listed, and really for most folks it might be over kill. 1 camera pack, 1 camera, 1 printer, 1 computer…..you’d have your own portable lab too. I’d strongly suggest using Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photomatix (if you’re interested in HDR photography). With all that in hand you too could have a compact photo lab that you’ll be extremely happy with.

I was planning on holding off on more HDR shots today.  Instead I was going to write about my portable photo lab.  There’s so much I can do in the Airstream’s space, and the equipment takes almost no room.  Well, except those darned books….  

I’ll write about my portable photo lab later.  Instead we’ll talk a little more about the HDR shots.  I know, more strange photos, right?  Sure, if you want to call them strange.

Last night I walked into the Granite Dells once again (shocking).  Strange wispy clouds were covering the skies once again.   I thought I might find some interesting shots.  Once again I set out to create a few unique HDRs that really relay what the Dells are like.  See, I’ve never been satisfied with photos of the Dells.  I never feel like the depth and scale of the rock formations gets relayed with standard shots.

So, I set up to do my HDRs.  The first two photos that you’re seeing here today are shots that went into the first HDR on this page.  One over exposed photo, one under exposed photo, and the one missing with a centered exposure.  In the end, with 3 photos in hand I generated the next photo…..

As you can see, this HDR seems to be more than a sum of it’s parts.  That’s why HDRs interested me in the first place.  The fact you can really bring out the contrast and detail of a scene blows my mind!

What’s nice is that you can see so much more than you would with a standard snap shot.  Normally, a sunset photo will yield neat skies and dark shadowed mountains.  Not with the HDR technique.  You can show the foreground as well, really providing the detail of the scene.  Just plain exciting, don’t you think?

Creating my HDRs isn’t super time consuming.  But keep in mind.  I don’t consider any of these a final product yet.  Give me time.  These are just the first pass with little work.  The next step to really get great art prints out of these is to work with the histogram, ensure accurate color, and make sure the HDR isn’t over the top.

With HDR you can do really accurate photos.  Or you can create almost cartoonish images that go beyond the reality of the scene.  I’d like to fall closer to the accurate scene.  Maybe with a little extra “pop” that makes a viewer stop and say, “Wow!”  Personally I’ve been saying that a lot lately as I learn about this craft (and it is a craft for sure).

Well, that’s it for today.  Hope you enjoyed seeing the photos that go into an HDR.  For your viewing pleasure I’ve included a second HDR from last night.  Just plain fun!

Oh, and by the way……with these types of shots I have to ask you……….

Isn’t my back yard super cool?  :)  I think it is!

This morning I had to get up and head out extremely early. More classes down in Phoenix. And in the future….a flight for a week of training elsewhere…..in the cards apparently. Wow, I used to fly constantly back in the “cell phone” daze…..

So, do you really want to hear about today’s class, the long ride to Phoenix, the extreme heat down there, etc, etc? Nah. You probably don’t.

Oh, and it was hot down there. Good grief…we headed to lunch and walked to the lunch spot. So hot….boiling inside quickly! Lunch was a salad, as nothing at the restaurant fit within my needs. Not a bad salad though….and it was hot……oh, I wasn’t supposed to talk about this…..

How about the latest HDR photos? Ah yes, that’s much more fun!

Sunday night I shot several series to create the two photos in today’s post. The first one is my favorite of the two, but it still needs some work. Due to a lens flare there’s a spot I’m unhappy with. But I’ll correct it.

The second shot was taken right before the sun went down. There was a lot of pink and yellow going on, and the overall lighting really impacted the look of the Granite Dells.

Of course each of these photos is really a compilation of 3 exposures of each scene. They’re pretty neat, but nowhere near finished. Just the beginning of my HDR trek with each photo.

If dinner gets finished quickly I’ll head up into the rocks and try a few more exposures tonight. See, there’s some funky cloud cover again today, and I’m betting it would lend to interesting HDRs.

Oh, and the second shot has a similar version posted a few days ago. Similar, but not the same. Did a little additional tweaking on it. Still, I like the first shot better……

Well, it hasn’t really felt like days off at all.  Busy would be the best way to describe things.

Yesterday I let myself rest a little in the morning.  A late start to the day, but then lots of running around.  The first big errand….well, not really an errand…..but it did involve running around.  Sadira gave me a call to let me know that an Arts and Crafts style event was happening on the square.  I had to go.

See, last year I noticed that there was a regular Bonsai dealer at the shows.  I’d been thinking about adding a little tree to the Airstream, and finding out the first big activity on the town square was happening I jumped in the truck and stopped by Sadira’s.

She was under the weather yesterday.  Sinus infection done, food poisoning in full effect.  One thought here gang.  Shrimp & Arizona….don’t do it.  Just don’t!

We hit the show and sure enough, bonsai trees were available.  I looked around, then wandered the square for a while deciding on what to do.  Finally we returned to the little tent full of trees and I picked my Airstream’s new resident.  You’ll see photos soon enough.

I once had a wonderful little bonsai for years.  High school.  It thrived.  Then I went to MA for a few weeks and my mom watched over the tree.  One night on the phone she told me she’d accidentally killed the tree.  She thought it could use some fertilizer (NOOOOOOOOO) and the tree went brown pretty quick.  Whoops!  Still, she was the best mom I could ask for and I still miss her.  Happy Mother’s Day mom.  A new little tree is along in the Airstream now.

I dropped Sadira off and headed for home.  Quick lunch and then I ran up to the Rodeo Stadium.  Yes, I got to photograph the rodeo.  No, I’m not satisfied with the shots.  I needed a 1.8 lens for this stuff, and I didn’t drag one along.  The rodeo started at 7:30, and even with the lights in the stadium the action was so fast that the lenses I brought didn’t cover it.  A few interesting shots that I’ll play with in Photoshop.  Maybe you’ll see them down the road.

I didn’t get home until almost 10, and I was starved.  So I sat up and made a late dinner.  Didn’t get to sleep until nearly midnight.  Ah yes, restful!

This morning was an early rise.  I headed out to the north side of Sycamore Canyon with Sadira, Tom, & DaNece.  2 hour ride in on the super bumpy roads through Perkinsville.  Nearly a 3 hour hike toward the canyon (no water already, lots of dry beds), hot sun, winds with some type of eye irritating  pollen, and a generally wonderful time!  Glad to have shared the adventure.

Our “haze” has returned to the skies, and the blues were really washed out today.  I’ve heard it’s hazy from here to Georgia, so who knows what is up.  So, many of the landscape shots today were sub-par to say the least.  But there was one thing that caught all of our attention.  The flowers heading into the area.  Blues, powder blues, oranges, and purples.  The purple really got me.  Cactus flowers once again (hey, they’re not red).

As we made our way in we began seeing new (to us) flowers that really stood out against the red rock background.  Small green cactus with purple flowers.  One here, one there.  As we neared our destination clusters of the flowers.  Big clusters.  They seemed to be everywhere.  Even along our hike we found more of these wonderful cactus (I’ll look them up in my book tomorrow).

I have dozens of good shots.  They’re all slightly washed out, but I’ll deal with them in Photoshop tomorrow.  High afternoon sun, even with haze, yields less than brilliant results.  But the shots here are currently unedited.  And they’re still stunning flowers in my opinion. 

Finally, after hours driving in, hours hiking, and hours driving back we returned to Prescott.  Sadira wasn’t feeling too well, and I was a little off.  Hot hike, lots of dust, lots of exertion, etc.  Plus I got too much sun.  So we basically crashed on the couch for a while, and finally got enough energy to get moving again.  Sadira headed off to Costco, and I went to do some shopping at Fry’s.  Groceries you know.

After some rest this evening I decided to head to downtown Prescott to try setting up a few exposures for doing an HDR (High Dynamic Ratio) photo.  My intention was to get Whiskey Row and the St. Michaels Hotel.  I’ve gotten many exposures this evening, and only started toying with them.  I only took one set of exposures of the Courthouse, and the result was the photo at the start of this post.  My first satisfying HDR photo (to me at least).  I only tone mapped it after feeding the 3 exposures into Photomatix.  No real tweaking beyond their basic tone mapper.  I like it.  There are places for HDR to be used……more will follow.

That’s it for the evening.  10 p.m. here and I’m beat.  Tomorrow, laundry, errands, and who knows what else.  Wonder if I can fit a 3 hour nap in somewhere?

Ah, time off. No racing around this morning. No radio on to find out the news of the day. Just a slow and steady start to the day.

Oh yeah….I slept in until 8 a.m.! I did wakeup around 5, some light coming through the vent cover, but I strategically placed a pillow and went back to sleep. Sometimes light can be overcome by the common pillow!

After getting up I made a few calls back to New England. Mostly I reached nobody! They’re all out doing stuff, after all they’re 3 hours ahead of me and I woke up late.

While I made my phone calls I did a little organizing in the trailer, and charged up all my camera batteries. Re-stuffed the new Crumpler bag, got the 30 & 40D cameras ready, and charged my flash batteries as well. The rodeo is tonight you know.

I also messed around with a series of photos I shot weeks ago. Remember my mentioning HDR images? Yeah, they’ve still been on my mind, but I’d been doing the 7 Point System. One major project at a time. The next major project is coming up. I now want to really learn about HDR. I’ve got a few ideas you see……

So, this morning I gave Photomatix Pro a whirl. I also tried the HDR setup in Photoshop once more. The image you see here today was done with Photomatix. I’ve only started experimenting, so cut me a little slack on this first true venture into HDR. I used their default settings, and didn’t get far into tone mapping.

Why?

Time for breakfast & a shower. Then to start the day. Plus I had to pop a post up you know.

I’ve played with Scott Kelby’s 7 point system for a while now. Still, I’m only in the “Photoshop Experimentation” mode. It’s hard choosing photos to edit. Looking through my favorites I find myself saying, “I don’t think I need to edit that…..do I?”

Well, today I decided to apply some of the techniques.

The original photo I picked was one of Bert Gildart. You remember him, don’t you? Well, on our hike into the Promised Land I got a few interesting shots of Bert & Janie as we hiked around.

One favorite was Bert at the edge of a small cave we explored. I liked the photo right off and never adjusted it, just posted it onto the blog. You’re looking at the photo right now.

Unfortunately the lighting wasn’t the best. The sun was above us and slightly behind the rock formation. The plus was we weren’t staring into the sun, the minus was a lack of good light shooting into the cave.

Looking at the shot I thought a little more and found everything to be slightly bland. Except Bert of course, he’s just not a bland guy. The rock edges didn’t have the greatest contrast, Bert’s blue jeans looked even more faded than they truly were……I think you get the gist.

So, this morning I set about trying my hand at being “artistic” with one of my photos. I wanted the rocks to have more contrast, and I wanted Bert to stand out from the scene. I’m not sure if I achieved it or not. Then again, I spent about 6 minutes on the edits.

As you’ll see immediately, the colors have changed dramatically. That happened almost immediately. I shot this picture in RAW. That left me a lot of room to work with the photo after the fact. The first step I took was resetting the white balance. The original seemed a little too far into the blue range. And it was. I simply sampled an area that should be white to set my custom white balance. The white I sampled from was the piece of paper sticking up from Bert’s pocket.

After resetting the white balance I revealed some more detail from the shadows behind Bert. At first I revealed too much and it looked far too artificial, so I toned it down a bit. All of those changes were in the RAW editor in Photoshop (it always pops up when you bring a RAW image in).

I opened the image and created a new layer with adjustments. At the tone curve I set it to Strong Contrast. That really brought all the edges of the rocks out. It also over did it on Bert, so I created a mask and got Bert out of the strong contrast.

Finally, when resetting the white balance in the beginning I thought Bert’s jeans faded way too much. So I created one more layer, jumped into Hue & Saturation, and pumped up the blues a touch. Bert’s jeans became “new jeans”, and I touched up the blue pattern around his hat. Basically, I got the blues back to where they were in the original shot, while keeping a warmer yellow to everything else.

So, there’s the first real official edit attempt. I understand all the concepts from Kelby’s amazing book. The thing that he can’t do for you in the book is teach you what the correct lighting and colors should be. Sure, in his book he walks you through getting that great image, and he’s made all the decisions. Doing this one I kept asking myself, “Is that closer to the real color?” I guess in time I’ll get better with that as well.

I can say, I love the 7 Point System. It’s been a lot of fun. Now it’s time to really play with applying the techniques and get creative!

I don’t know how many times a month I tell people about my favorite little book, “The Digital Photography Book.”  Guess I’ve helped the author bring it to the point of being the “Best Selling Photography Book” of all time.  Wow!

Glad to see a favorite read / manual is getting the type of credit that is due to it.

Now, how many times a month is the Digital RV recommended?  Hmmmm…..?  I wonder if every one of my readers talked about it with other RVers 10 times a month how many books would go out the door?  Better yet, I wonder when I’d catch up with Kelby’s book (that’ll be a long way off).

Playing with the 7 point system

As I’d mentioned the other week I started into another favorite book, “The 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop.”  I’ve basically finished all of the lessons and I’ve got to say, I really do understand Photoshop.  I can take photos and fix flaws now.  Changing lighting, color, etc., are all within my reach.

Now it’s time to try one of my own shots.  Too bad I can’t make up my mind on what to edit!

If you want to understand Photoshop, check out the 7 point system!  That simple!

Unfortunately I haven’t been taking many photos lately.  Busy is an understatement.  Beyond that, I’ll be very busy over the next 8 days.  Then I’ll have a few days off.  The weekend of the 10th I’ll be free for 3 days.  A planned rest period.  Also, I’ll be shooting a rodeo in town on the 10th!  That should be fun.  Maybe I’ll create a few photos I want to edit!

So, today was a relaxed day.  Extremely relaxed, and that’s a plus in my mind.  Sure, there were plenty of errands this morning, but by 11:30 I was home doing some minor tidying.  That was it.

I did take the time to do another lesson from the 7 point system book.  I’ve got to say, it’s worthwhile if you really want to come to terms with Photoshop.  As a guy who only used Photoshop to crop and resize photos, and correct glaring color issues, what I’m learning is amazing me.  Really, amazing me!

I’ve now learned how layers and masks really work.  And the truth is you really can take a mediocre photo and make it a good one.  And you can take a good shot and make it great.  The examples in today’s post fall somewhere between moderate and good.  Not great yet.  However, I spent only 5-7 minutes editing to get a few changes.  I’m sure you see them.

The sky and surrounding areas in the photo are the same.  The Airstream has improved, and almost looks like a fill flash was involved.  You really get to see more of the trailer in the second shot.  Literally, this adjustment took well under 10 minutes.  It’s not a “great” photo, but it’s interesting how easy it is to alter the image and make it look like additional lighting was available.

Whether or not you think it’s super cool is irrelevant.  The technique is super cool.  And I spent no time on the edit.  Sometime this weekend I’ll see what I can really do with this image (I like the image, but wonder if more can come out of it).

On other notes…..

I realized, it was about this time last year that I started climbing again. Nice to think back.  Nicer yet, I’m looking forward to another season with Andy & Brooke.  Hopefully we’ll keep adding friends to the climbing schedule.  Oh, and I’d like more available time to climb…..we’ll have to see about that…..all depends on book sales I suppose….