Help Eric – Please Paint Me
by James Howe on Jan.26, 2012, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm @ 25mm, ISO 200, 7 exposure HDR)
I was going through some older images the other day when I ran across this one which I had taken a couple of years ago. I posted a different angle of the same building here. I decided that I liked this angle as well, especially because of the writing on the side of the building, so I thought I would work with the image to see if I could come up with something I liked. The subject is what I presume to be an old gas station in Saginaw, Michigan. I took the shot at the end of a day trip to Saginaw. Saginaw has been through rough times since the 70′s and it was actually pretty depressing to visit. I grew up near by and was disappointed to see how many buildings in the downtown area had been torn down.
This image was created from 7 exposures, blended in Photomatix and then further processed in Photoshop using primarily Photo Tools from OnOne Software and Silver Efex Pro2 from Nik. I used a variety of effects from PhotoTools, brushing them in where I thought the effect looked nice. I created a black and white version and then backed off on the opacity to bring some of the color back to the image. This version of the shot has a colder look to it than the one I posted previously. The other one is probably more ‘accurate’, given that the sun was low in the sky creating a warm tone, but I think the colder tone of this one works as well.
Comments and questions always appreciated!
Copyright ©2010-2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Peninsula Paper Company – Ypsilanti, Mi
by James Howe on Jan.22, 2012, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm @ 30mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 @ f/11)
This shot shows the old generator building for the Peninsula Paper Company of Ypsilanti, Michigan. The company closed years ago and the factory was demolished to make way for some apartments. I shot this shot of the old hydroelectric generator building from the site of the old paper factory. It was late in the day and I tried to get to this location before the sun set. I used my Photographers Ephemeris application to check out the sun angle and I knew that it would be shining on the build and I thought the evening light might look good on the building. The one downside with this sun position and time of year is the reddish color of the building tends to make the building blend in with the trees. Later in the year the sun might not be in such a nice position, but the green of the trees would help separate the building from the background.
I went through several steps to create the final image. The image started out as a wide angle shot, but I decided I wanted to focus more on the building. I also shot this as a 7 shot HDR, but after I processed the brackets in Photomatix I wasn’t thrilled with the result. After some experimentation I decided to use just two of the exposures and ran them through Photomatix to blend them. I then took the image into Photoshop. The first thing I did was use Color Efex Pro 4 to bring out some additional details. I used a ‘recipe’ that I created which uses the Tonal Contrast, Detail Extractor and Reflect Efex filters. The net result created a somewhat glassy look to the calm water and more details everywhere.
I thought image at this point was too colorful. The sunlit portions of the image looked good, but the water had a funky blue tone which just didn’t look right. I thought I might experiment with a black and white conversion, so I used Silver Efex Pro 2 to create an image based on one of the ‘antique’ presets. I adjusted the preset to make the grain less obvious, removed the borders and made some other adjustments. It looked nice, but I decided I wanted to have a bit of color so I reduced the opacity to let some color flow through. The last thing I did was to apply a Topaz Simplify filter. This created a painterly look to the entire image. I blocked out the effect on the trees and building using a layer mask, and I reduced the effect on the water.
I could have stopped at this point but I still wasn’t happy with the color. The building had actually become a little greenish. I played with color balance but couldn’t get anything to look right. I decided to start over. I followed similar steps to create a second version, but I managed to come up with an image where the building looked better, but I didn’t like the look of the water as much. As a final step, I opened both images in Photoshop as layers and had Photoshop line them up. Since they were from the same image there wasn’t a problem getting things to line up. I then masked out the water in one image to let the water show through from the other. I also decided that I didn’t link the wide angle, so I created a square crop to focus more on the building itself.
Always interested in hearing your thoughts or questions. Feel free to leave them below. Thanks!
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Waikiki After Sunset
by James Howe on Jan.16, 2012, under Travel
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 4 seconds @ f/22)
This shot of the main stretch of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii started out life as a series of brackets to be used for an HDR. I had set my tripod up on a breakwater and shot back at the beach area about 20 minutes after sunset. I processed the brackets, but I didn’t like the end result. There was a bit of a breeze that night and I think it contributed to some camera shake which caused the resultant image to be less sharp that I like. I looked at the brackets and decided to see what I could do with just one of the brackets. Turns out the middle bracket had enough detail to produce an interesting image. The main goal in processing was to brighten certain areas of the image, particularly the hotels. I also wanted to make sure that the clouds had some detail. The original image had a large amount of ocean which I didn’t think contributed to the image, so I cropped it to make it more of a pano. I think that works well with the shape of the coast, the buildings and Diamondhead in the background.
Feel free to leave comments and questions below!
Copyright ©2011-2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Oahu Coastline
by James Howe on Jan.12, 2012, under Travel
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 44mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec @ f/11)
The shot above shows a portion of the north east coast of Oahu, Hawaii. My family and I recently visited Hawaii and one day while the rest of the family was off on a kayaking trip, I rented a car and took a drive around the island. It’s hard to get good landscape images when you are on vacation with others simply because schedules don’t always allow you to be in the right place at the right time to capture the best light. Instead, you just have to shoot what you are given. On my drive around the island I stopped at this small beach park. It was very windy that day and it made for some really nice surf. I took several pictures at this beach and when I was leaving I walked over to this area which was located underneath some trees. I liked the way the foreground plants and the tree framed the surf and the distant hills. Unfortunately the light was rather strong and created some haze in the distance, but I still liked the view so I took the picture.
The picture presented a complicated scene, very dark foreground, very bright background. I had my tripod with me and I could have shot this as an HDR, but with all the wind I thought there would be too much blurring due to motion and I wasn’t looking for the smooth water shot that blurring might give me. Instead, I created two versions of this image in Lightroom. One with a brighter foreground, one with the darker foreground. I opened both images in Photoshop as layers and then used layer masks to brighten areas of the scene that I wanted to be brighter. As I worked on the image I thought that it might look good done more as a painting than as a photograph. I used Topaz Simplify with the Buz Sim preset to create something more painterly. I wasn’t completely happy with that, so I decided to blend my painterly version with a normal version, creating a hybrid of the two. The end result is what you see above.
Please let me know what you think, or ask any questions you might have about the image or the processing below. Mahalo!
Copyright ©2011-2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Bits of the USS Missouri
by James Howe on Jan.04, 2012, under Travel
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 48mm, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6)
One of the things my family did when we visited Hawaii recently was to visit Pearl Harbor. One of the exhibits that is now located at Pearl Harbor is the USS Missouri. The image above was taken during a tour of the USS Missouri. Most of the lower decks of the ship are still off limits, but you can go through most of the upper levels. This picture shows a phone from the bridge area of the ship. I have a thing for old technology and I just liked the look of the thing.
For those who may not know the history of the Missouri, it has a couple of historical distinctions. One of the things I didn’t know about this ship was that it was the last battleship ever launched. The attack on Pearl Harbor ushered in the age of the aircraft carrier and the usefulness of the battleship was greatly diminished. The other notable fact about the Missouri is that it was the ship on which the Instrument of Surrender was signed which ended the war between the US and Japan. After some work during the Korean war the ship was decommissioned in 1955. In 1984 the ship was modernized and recommissioned to serve in the Persian Gulf. The ship was decommissioned one last time in 1992. The ship found it’s final home in Pearl Harbor in 1998.
When I decided to work on this image I wanted to punch things up a bit. I used a few different filters from Photo Tools to give it the more grungy, off color look that it has.
Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below. Thanks for stopping by!
Copyright ©2011-2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.