Thursday, April 17, 2014

500 Posts And Counting

It was five years ago (almost to the day [4/21/2009]) that The Kayview Gallery (TKG) had its initial post.  I looked back at some of the early images and, frankly, some of them gave me a giggle.  What the hell was I thinking?  There's a few I still like.  The very first post was about an image I took at one o'clock in the afternoon and turned it into a reasonable night shot.  A retired professional photographer, when looking at the print, wanted to know how, if it wasn't a night shot, did I get the interior to look right.  I think I remember telling him it was a very special trick I used.  Truth is, what looked like an interior was actually the reflection of the building across the street.  I changed the color of the panes of the window using the Color Blend Mode to give the appearance of warm tungsten light.  It was an exercise in the mind seeing what it wanted to see rather than what was reality.  Other things going back through the Blogger online database for TKG I'm reminded for the slow start we had.  The first post, to this day, has only seven total views.  Even today, TKG isn't exactly one of the big name photography blogs.  Just an eclectic few (hundred) who read it on a regular basis.  There are thousands who pass by, but I've come to recognize some of the frequent readers.  Some folks in Bozeman Montana check TKG about every day to see what's new.  According to Google Analytics there been twenty one different people from Bozeman stopping by almost three hundred times during the past year.  There's about 38,000 people in Bozeman.  If I could get that same ratio of readership from New York City that would be something over one hundred thousand reads (for one city) rather than a little less than one thousand.  Guy (or folks) in Bozeman?  I appreciate your support.  TKG has been one of the blogs featured in the Photoshop section of Alltop  .  We're selected as "Most Topular" often enough to make me smile.  Thanks to Alltop.  Thanks also to all who have mentioned TKG on their blogs and sites.  We've gotten nods from Planet Photoshop, Lightroom Killer Tips, MasterPhotoshop, Photoshop User and a bunch of others.  It is nice to know we're occasionally noticed by the heavy hitters. 

How about if we make post number 500 a record breaker.  Make it some sort of chain letter type of thing.  Send it to ten of your friends and ask them to send it to ten of theirs.  There won't be any sort of prize or payoff, but if the results are magical I'll report back on the next post.

So, thanks to all readers.  Those loyalists and those who are dropping by for the first time.  I appreciate your interest.  I hope you get a kick out of today's image.
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Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Bring Out The Details Using Photoshop

Today's image is an exploration in pulling details out of an image.  There's all sorts of areas that have been "worked on"  The jewelry, the hat, the shirt and the beard to name a few.  They've all been "souped up", but two used one technique and two used a totally different method.  The hat and the shirt "had" to be done in Adobe Photoshop (PS) [any version you might be using]  and the jewelry and beard were easily taken care of in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (LR) [any version].  Before I see a flood of comments saying "watta mean 'had to be done' in PS".  I know, there's fifteen ways to do anything in PS and a dozen in LR.  I just wanted to do it in a time saving manner.  What are the techniques?  To find out, hit the "Read More".

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Thursday, April 3, 2014

NIght Photography Made Easy

Have you ever gotten the urge to grab your camera and go out and shoot in the middle of the night?  Photography at night is an adventure.  You stumble around, set up your tripod, guess at a starting exposure (not really), stumble around some more, probably freeze your butt off, take forty two shots of the moon, stumble around again and on and on.  You'd thing that Hollywood, making big time epics, would avoid all that stumbling at all costs.  Actually, they usually do.  Next time you're watching a movie where the hero (heroine) is out wandering around in the dark, take a closer look.  Chances are you'll see shadows cast by things like trees, street lights, buildings, anything that sticks up from the ground.  Wow, they must have been shooting that scene under a full moon. Not!  Movies have been using a trick for as long as movies have been made.  Still photographers used to use the same trick, but it either has been forgotten or today's "new" shooters have never learned it.  "Back in the day" photographers ran around with a stack of filters to fit various lenses and conditions.  If you had daylight film in the camera and you had to shoot an inside shot, you'd check on the lights and put on either a tungsten to daylight filter (an 85A) or a fluorescent to daylight filter (an FLD).  Same in reverse.  It you had tungsten light balanced film and had to run outside into the sunlight you'd slap on a daylight to whatever light you were coming from filter (an 80A for tungsten light).  To find out how this relates to today's image, hit the "Read More".

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