Posts in Category: Photoshop
Happy Thanksgiving! Just for fun.
Photoshopped from 2 Nikon P900 images.
I am not a big fan of Photoshoped images…images that are created in Photoshop…and could not exist without digital manipulation. I tried for an actual shot of Sandhill Cranes against the almost full moon at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge during the Festival of the cranes, with some success, but also took a few daylight shots of the moon thinking I might later work up a composite image in Photoshop…just for fun! This is one. In some ways it is a testament to the power of the Nikon P900 camera. Both shots, moon and cranes, were taken hand-held with the P900. The moon is at about 2000mm equivalent field of view, and the cranes are at about 1200mm. To create the image, I edited out one piece of crane in the top left corner using iPixio. Then, in Photoshop, I used the magic wand tool to select and delete the blue sky background around the cranes. It required some fine adjustments of the selection, pixel by pixel, to eliminated almost everything that was not crane. Finally I opened the moon shot and pasted the cranes over the moon. It took about an hour.
As art, I think it works. As a photograph, maybe not so much. 🙂
And, as a Thanksgiving shot? Well I am, of course, thankful for my cameras, for my software and computer, and most of all, for time to play. But that thankfulness does not begin to touch the real thankfulness for my life, my life in Christ…for my family, for my home, for the blessing of being…for the privilege of sharing…for the love I am surrounded by. When we sit down to celebrate today as a family, it is such an amazing abundance that we celebrate. And no matter what else goes on in this world, we have a right, we have a duty, to be happy! Happy Thanksgiving.
Tall Fall Pond Shot
We are still at least a week, maybe two, from full colors here in Southern Maine, but the curtain is up and the show has certainly begun! A couple of days ago I set out on my scooter at lunch time, thinking I would go hunt the last of the dragonflies, but this sky immediately caught my attention, and I turned around to head for the coast and the Back Creek ponds and the Mousam river crossing, where I could catch the sky over a landscape. I took several conventional wide angle views of Pond #1, but as I am always just a little disturbed by having to cut to top off the tall pine on the right, I tried a two shot vertical panorama. This is two 24mm views stitched one above the other to catch more of the tree and more of the sky. When you do vertical panos the perspective issues with a wide angle lens are dramatic. Even if you hold the camera out and try to keep the image plane parallel to the scene you end up with a lot of vertical perspective distortion. Looking at the two images your immediate thought it that there is no way you are going to be able to stitch them into one. I am always amazed at how well PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements does the job. I know it is all math, but most of time it makes very intelligent decisions about which parts of each image to retain and which to let go, and how to blend the two. The layer maps before blending look like jigsaw puzzle pieces…but when it works (and it does not always work) it produces a seamless image. Like this one. 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Two 24mm shots. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. Stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. I used my HyperReal preset…which is designed for scenes like this with maximum tonal range and bright colors.
Another Wide on the Mousam.
A three shot panorama looking up the Mousam from the bridge on Route 9 in Kennebunk. Again. I have been compelled to take this view before. It is one of the few spots in our flat forested county were you can get a mostly unobstructed view of the horizon to the west. East is easy. We have the ocean on that side. West, well you can go here, or you can go to the Kennebunk Plains, but that is about it. And here you have the river to catch the sky. 🙂 We are coming up on some of the best skies of the summer, as fronts pass in late August and early September. This is certainly one of them. (For the best view, click the image and it will open at the full width of your monitor.)
I thought about cloning out the bit of telephone pole on the left and the wires on the right, but decided they add to the framing and don’t distract too much. Besides I like the bobber and bit of ribbon caught on the wire 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Three 24mm equivalent shots. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. Stitched in PhotoShop Elements’ PhotoMerge tool. Final processing in Lightroom.
7/5/2012: Mousam at High Tide, Kennebunk ME
On my way to the Dragon Ponds the other day I had to pull over where the fishermen park by the Route 9 bridge over the Mousam River to catch this view. That is one of the unforeseen advantages of Froggy the Scoot (the electric scooter I bought for my local summer photoprowls, in case you have not been keeping up). You can stop on a dime on a whim on a view, anywhere there is sufficient shoulder to prop a kickstand. No excuses for missing any photo-op. On this day, a storm front was coming over, the clouds were spectacular, the river was brim full and just rippled enough for interest, there was this enticing little island of grass, and, on closer inspection, a rose in foreground. What could be better?
I framed this scene twice, once with more sky for drama and once with the rose. Only in looking at the two this morning, trying to decide which one to post, did I realize that what I really wanted was both…rose and sky. The two frames did not line up perfectly, as, of course, I was not thinking of a vertical panorama when I took them, but they were close enough to give it a try in PhotoShop Elements 10’s PhotoMerge tool. I expected to loose a lot on both edges where the images did not overlap, but PSE’s auto fill did an excellent job of projecting the content to fill the corners. If you want the challenge, try to see what is real and what is generated in the top left and bottom right corners. Amazing software. And I ended up with the image I wanted, even when I didn’t know what I wanted until too late. 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200.
Two frames merged vertically as above. Final processing in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
8/8/2011: Kennebunk Plains panorama
This 4 shot, full resolution panorama, done with the Nikon Coolpix P500’s Assisted Panorama mode, covers just over 180 degrees. I was, so to speak, back to back to myself for the first and last shots. I has to be viewed as large as your monitor will allow, which should happen if you click the image and open the Smugmug lightbox. (My Smugmug uploads are limited to 4000 pixels wide…the original is 11834×3030.
In an image this wide, I find that the normal horizon placement rules don’t apply. This image is almost equally split between sky and landscape, and yet to my eye, it works. Certainly the level of interest in the clouds helps, providing a effective balance for the details of the plain.
This is the Kennebunk Plains again and you can see Northern Blazing Star on the left and right in the immediate foreground. What you see here, by the way, is about 3/4 of the whole Plain. My back, in the center of the image, is to the road that divides the Plain and separates the smaller quarter on the other side, and if I had included any more on either end of the image you would have seen the road and its telephone poles.
Assisted Panorama displays the leading edge of the first shot in transparent form so you can lay it over the landscape to take image two, etc. It makes even tripod-less panos pretty easy. Here each exposure was at 32mm equivalent field of view, and nominal exposure was f5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. The image was stitched in PhotoMerge within PhotoShop Elements 9, and processed for Clarity, Intensity, and Sharpness in Lightroom.
{[][][]}
7/30/2011: Bark Triptych
I am always fascinated by the patterns in tree bark and aging tree trunks. This set is from the nature trail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters. Each image was worth recording in its own right, but I think the contrast grouping them like this makes an interesting study. And I am interested in what you see, if you see anything, in the center panel?
Nikon Coolpix P500. The two outer pics are at 32mm equivalent field of view (Close UP mode) and the last one is at 176mm. ISO 180, 200, and 280.
Each image was processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness, and then the three images were assembled in PhotoShop Elements 9.
7/9/2011: Summer Evening 2, Kennebunk ME
The most hardy of tourists and summer folk, with a scattering of locals down to the beach late in the day. You really have to view this as large as your monitor will allow. (Just click the image) This is Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk ME (most tourists think it is in Kennebunkport, and the point on the right, beyond the Kennebunk River, is…but the beach is solidly in Kennebunk :). This matters to summer folk with houses there and to us locals).
Not an easy pano…four shots using the Nikon’s Assisted Panorama Mode so the second shot is laid over the first, etc. I tried to work as quickly as possible to minimize movement of people and boats…not to mention the ocean…but it works for the most part.
Four 32mm equivalent field of view exposures @ f3.7 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160, stitched in PhotoMerge in PhotoShop Elements 9 using manual positioning. Final processing in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. It is cropped from the bottom as there was a family in beach chairs in the shade of the wall that drew the eye down from the horizon.
This is a huge sweep. When taking the left-most exposure my back was pretty much completely to the exposure on the far right.
4/17/2011: Where the Merriland meets the Little
Happy Sunday! I spent an hour yesterday morning at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters area, walking the little nature trail through the woods down to the Little River and the Merriland, as the sun was trying to warm a cold early spring day. There is little sign of spring at Rachel Carson beyond the light, the first hard leaf buds, and the earliest signs the intention to blossom on the Hobblebush.
This is where the Merriland River, in the foreground, meets the Little River, on the left. It is a 4 shot panorama and really needs to be seen as large as your monitor will allow. It is, in fact, considerably wider than you would be likely to take in at one view. By relaxing your attention and, so to speak, stepping back behind your eyes, you would be able to see this sweep, but generally our attention is more focused and we would only see this as a series of impressions. I like the way the early light is playing across the marsh and bringing up the blues in the water, when there are none in the sky.
Canon SX20IS, four 28mm equivalent fields of view, stitched using the Panorama tool in Photomerge within PhotoShop Elements 9, and processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. Average exposure was in the f4 @ 1/160th @ ISO 80 range. Landscape mode.
And,for Sunday…I think about that focused attention we bring to bear on the world around us, limiting our natural 180º plus, to between 15º of truly focused attention, and 60º-90º of operational attention. We call the rest peripheral. And yet, we could all benefit, I suspect, from the habit, say, once or twice a day, of stepping back behind our eyes, relaxing, and taking in the full width of our vision. It is certainly so in spiritual things. One of the most profound insights of any spiritual journey is just how focused on our limited view of things we all are, and what a change it makes to step back and look out of larger eyes than our own. Doing so does not diminish in any way the particular that is the focus of our attention…it just puts it in perspective. What is my own salvation, precious as it is, in comparison to the salvation of mankind and the redemption of creation? There is a kind of prayer that seeks that experience…not petition (necessary focused on the particular)…but a reverent approach to unity through love that is sometimes called meditation. Unfocused attention, while I would not argue that it is the highest form of vision, or of prayer, is undoubtedly good for us.
Which is maybe why every photographer needs to experiment with panoramas once in a while. 🙂
4/9/2011: Upriver Mousam Panorama
This is just two 28mm equivalent images stitched, but I guess it still qualifies as a panorama. We are looking up the Mousam from the Route 9 bridge in Kennebunk on a day with amazing clouds and a spring snow on the ground. It is interesting to me that, being familiar with the seasons in Southern Maine, I could never mistake this for a winter shot, despite the snow. The quality of the light, and its angle, marks this as somewhere very near the equinox…as indeed it was. April 4, the first weekend April. The only strange part is that I had to pull off through a line of huge snowballs pushed up by the plough to take the shot. Likely, but only possibly, the last snow of this season.
I really like the quality of the light and its variations across the surface of the water.
Canon SX20IS. Two 28mm equivalent field of view exposures, f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 80, Landscape Mode, stitched in PhotoShop Elements 9’s panorama tool, and processed for intensity and clarity in Lightroom. There was a telephone pole at the left, which I cropped out, so it is not quite the width of the two exposures.
This is a rare panorama with waves in that the blend where the exposures meet actually works, managing to pass for a eddy in the current.
4/5/2011: Wood Island Light Panorama, etc.
This is a 4 shot panorama, taken from East Point in Biddeford Pool, Maine, looking up the coast past the Wood Island Light and well out to sea. It really must be viewed larger. Clicking on the image should open it to the width of your monitor.
And this is a closer view, at about 300mm equivalent field of view…as you can see there was a high wind and lots of moisture in the air, which limits the sharpness of the light at this distance. What you see beyond the light is Cape Elizabeth.
I am still experimenting with Panorama. I always forget that the sea is not still and any shot with waves is going to take some fixing. I had to go in with the clone tool in PhotoShop Elements 9 and do some creative wave adjustment…still, in a shot this large and expansive…most people will not notice. Since the level of the horizon in a shot this wide is critical, I did not use widest angle on the Canon’s zoom, which would have introduced some linier distortion in each shot. I find that normal lens (50mm or there abouts) stitches better when there is such an obvious horizon.
1) Canon SX20IS, four 62mm equivalent field of view shots, stitched in PSE 9’s Panorama tool using the Align Images setting. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. 2) Canon SX20IS at 300mm equivalent field of view, f5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape Mode for both.
Both processed in Lightroom for intensity and clarity.