Friday, August 29, 2014

Not Using Layers. Is That Even An Option?


A buddy of mine is an artist.  A real artist, with paints and brushes and canvas and an easel and everything.  He's not exactly a dabbler.  Between his "collection" and his personal work he just sold one painting and went out and bought himself a new car.  The guy's pretty serious. He's been represented by some big name galleries and his personal paintings fetch four and five figure prices.  The reason I bring him up is that he once asked a fellow giving an Adobe Photoshop (PS) class if he always used Layers.  The guy looked at him like he was from another planet and simply said "yes".  My friend is a physical artist.  He has only one "Layer" to use.  The canvas before him.  The paint goes on in "layers", but "the Background Layer" never changes.  Here's something from YouTube showing someone producing an entire image digitally using only one Layer.  Obviously, it can be done.  I can't, but others can.  If I didn't have dozens of Layers, hidden behind multiple (and nested) Smart Objects, I doubt I'd be doing much more than making stick figures.  I've included a screen shot of the Layers Pallet for today's image.  Check it out by hitting the "Read More".
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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Selling The Fake

Today's image comes from an Indian powwow held at Foxwoods Casino over the weekend.  It is definately not what it looks like.  The "fake" in the title of the post doesn't have anything to do with the young woman dancing.  She was great.  Very energetic, getting her fringe going every which way.  I'm certainly no expert (not even close), but there appeared to be a similarity to the Hawaiian Hula.  The dancing seemed to be very "story telling".  Looking to the ground.  Looking to the sky.  Looking out at the distance.  I didn't know the stories the dancers were telling, but each dancer was "acting" out a piece of tribal history.  I saw it again and again, from dance to dance.  There was a smoke dance, a shawl dance, a harvest dance and the men were "telling a story" in the war dance.  If you paid some attention you could pair up which people belonged together.  The head dress, the style of clothing, the tools and utensils were different enough from tribe to tribe to be able (for the outsider) to pick out sets of people.  The dancers were very gracious with their time, explaining where their tribe was from, what era their dress represented, and a little history or fun fact about their ancestors.  To find out what "the fake" is in today's image, hit the "Read More"

Today's image is actually two separate images.  The dance was part of a crowd out in the dance circle and the "background" was a couple hundred people sitting around under their shade, watching the dancing.  Extraction of the dancer was made "easier" with Topaz Labs ReMask 3.  It still didn't come easy, just easier.  ReMask had a hard time with the internal spacing of the fringe

The corn was behind a rail fence that "needed" to be removed.  Easy enough with the Healing Brush (J) found in Adobe Photoshop CC (PS) (and earlier versions).  The big gotcha there was making sure all the Blurring was done before removing the fence.

One thing that had to be addressed was the big olde number on her shawl, facing me like a big olde beacon.  It was right in the corner and covered a quarter of design.  That had to be rebuilt by taking pieces and doing quite a bit of Free Transform (CTRL T) work.  The general shade of the pieces were formed using the Lasso Tool (L), then moved, spun around and warped.  The Free Transform Tool does it all.  Make a Selection using the Lasso Tool (L), Copy to a New Layer (CTRL J), bring up Free Transform, drag to the area needing to be patched, put the cursor just outside the bounding box and spin the Selection to somewhat match the area needing the patch, right click inside the box to bring up options, choose Warp and pull the handles to made the patch fit exactly.  Easy-peasy.  The big trick is taking your time to fit all the straight edges.  It takes a little time.

One more little trick.  The sun was casting a big time shadow.  Rather than recreating her shadow I made it part of the Selection and matched the grass in front of the corn to the grass in the shadow. 

Destination shooting is the way to go.  The Powwow was on the other side of the state, but the shots were there.  Much better than driving around aimlessly, burning the same amount of gas and maybe finding something to shoot. Read more!

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Shooting At The Right Time Of Day

They say there's only a couple "right" times of the day to do landscape/wildlife/magical photography.  Ya got your blue hour, ya got the golden hour, ya got what ya get when you go out.  That last one is an issue when the gating factor is a wife who likes to sleep late and eat as the sun goes down.  Every once in a while I can convince her that God made sunrises and sunsets for photographers.  The first evening we got out to Elk country (Benezett, PA which is literally in Elk County, Pennsylvania) we went up to "the" prime area for catching sight of elk.  The sun was about a half hour from setting and as soon as we got there we saw three elk on the edge of the ridge.  They were about a football field or more away, so they looking pretty small in the viewfinder.  Twenty minutes before sunset the field started filling in.  A couple yearlings trotted in from the right.  Some cows came up over the rise.  Calves began springing up as though they had been planted there.  About fifteen minutes before the sun went over the crest of the far off hills the field was overrun with about sixty or seventy cows, yearlings and calves,  Not one bull was in the mix.  Seems bull elk are a tad chauvinistic in the early days of August and tend to hang out in some sort of elk testosterone driven boy's club.  They, basically, don't have anything to do with raising they kids.  But, to hear about what we actually did see, hit the "Read More".

Adult elk run about 700 pounds.  They are apparently aware of this fact and they look at adult humans with distain.  They knew we were in their backyard and also knew cameras were no threat.  Now, elk aren't deer and they don't bounce around at high speed as a deer might.  They just sort of amble along, giving you a look as if to say "if you don't move I'm just going to walk right over you.  I weight 700 pounds and you don't."

A cow was walking through the field with her calf in tow.  Seems mother elks are not that much different than mother/father humans.  It looked like she had had enough of her frolicking youngster and just needed some alone time.  She obviously knew of the apple tree across the road (she probably did not know what a road was) and as calmly as could be walked right past the gawkers (within fifteen feet of Doris) and lay down under the tree.  In the mean time her calf was a little more leery of humans.  The calf wouldn't cross some mystical line between her/him and the humans.  Instead, the calf stood, toes on the line, and yelled out "mommmm, mommmm".  I swear, that's what it sounded like the calf was saying.  Mom, on the other hand, just sat there munching on the apples, facing away from her charge.  I guess mother elk can get just as frustrated with uncontrollably exuberant kids as any of us.

The elk do tend to move from place to place.  The next night the team meeting was held in someone's front yard about a half mile down the road.  The third day it was by a cabin on the ridgeline across a small valley.  If you get the chance, visit Benezette Pennsylvania to get an "elk experience".



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Monday, August 11, 2014

The Piece Of A Photographer's Kit That No One Talks About

Click to enlarge
We were on the road again last week.  This time it was "The Wilds" (literarily, that's what they call it) of Pennsylvania.  That area northeast of Pittsburgh and northwest of everything else.  We went there to shoot (photographically of course) Elk.  The area around the little (really little) town of Benezett (that's the way it's spelled in town.  On the maps it's Benezette.) has the largest herd of elk east of the Mississippi River.  About 700 - 800 head.  I'll get to the elk in the next post.  Today must serve as a warning to all photographers.  Anywhere you look (books, magazines, podcasts etc.) you'll find discussions, suggestions and recommendations about what the well turned out photog "should" have in his/her "kit".  (That's the Englishmen's term for gear.  I sort of like the term.  Sounds more fun than gear.)  There's one piece I never hear discussed.  I'd put it up there with a tripod or additional lenses and ahead of a second body.  It's so needed that I've determined I can't live without it anymore.  Before venturing out on another sojourn I have to equip myself with this gear or I might end up in a hospital near you.  It's that important.  To find out what this piece of "kit" is, hit the "Read More".


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