HDR - Florence, Italy after the rain...

Night is the perfect time for HDR photography. The dynamic range in the scene is often too great for the camera to record in a single exposure what we can see with our eyes.. Detail can be lost in both the highlight and shadow areas, making a balanced exposure tricky! This scene was photographed in Florence after a rain, which made the cobblestone roads shimmer with light. Nik HDR Efex Pro worked beautifully to combine the images to HDR, creating a single image that reflected more of what I saw when I made the picture. With HDR, you are the artist! You can create an image that is illustrative, or photorealistic, or somewhere in between! I am very much looking forward to my Nik HDR Efex Pro webinar this Wednesday at 5pm Eastern Time (2pm Pacific). I hope you will be there! Make great pictures... ~ Deb

Venice at night... and how to make a new Twitter background...

Venice was the first places I photographed in Italy. It will always hold wonderful memories! It was right before Christmas and many restaurants and businesses had beautiful decorations and colorful lights. This little restaurant on the waterfront had pumpkin ravioli with a pumpkin and nut sauce, yes... it was delicious! Venice is a maze of walkways and waterways. The gondolas were left at the dock in favor of water taxi's because of the freezing weather, but it was still, all and all, just wonderful.

This night shot was enhanced with a layer of texture from Flypaper Textures, and the Impasto filter from Alien Skin Snap Art. I like the brushstrokes of color and texture throughout the image. I made this my Twitter background for a new and different look. Click on this link http://twitter.com/#!/debsandidge to see the background, and please join me on Twitter! Want to make a new Twitter background? Resize your image to 1600 pixels wide, 1200 pixels tall,  and save as a jpeg no larger than 800k. In Twitter, upload your image under Settings>Design>Change Background Image. That should do it, and hope to see you on Twitter! ~ Deb

PS - All coupon codes are in my sidebar (DEB0902 for everything Alien Skin).  Click on the links to visit the sites, and please feel free to use any codes for plug-ins you'd like to try!

A little romance... with Alien Skin Snap Art

What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Italy is a very romantic place!  Outdoor cafes everywhere, candles, flowers even on the coldest of days. I liked this couple walking arm in arm and couldn't resist taking their picture walking under a canopy of blue stars. The scene looked as if it could be a artistic painting rather than just a photograph. To complete the idea, I used Oil Paint in Alien Skin Snap Art which creates wonderful brushstrokes of color throughout the image. We will be covering this technique in my 4 week online course Enhancing Images and Creating Works of Art at BetterPhoto.com. There is still time to sign up and join the fun! Make great pictures. ~ Deb

Raining? Don't put your camera away just yet...

Rain can create a wonderful opportunity for dramatic photographs. In Florence recently, it rained around the clock, creating an especially beautiful effect in the evening. I love the look of reflections cast on rain soaked streets. It creates a more expressive image than a photo taken during the day. Paired with a long exposure to record taillights from passing cars, a scene can become quite magical! 

Here are couple of tips to help you with capturing a captivating night scene... You'll need a sturdy tripod, remote shutter release (or use the camera self timer feature). An inexpensive three axis bubble level helps guide you to keeping things straight, especially in the dark. If you are using a lens with vibration reduction or image stabilization, turn it off while on the tripod. If you wish to photograph streaks from the taillights of passing cars, you may need to stop down so that your exposure is several seconds or longer. Use a low ISO to prevent noisy images. Bring an umbrella, a hotel shower cap, it works great to protect the camera, and bring a flashlight too. Have fun shooting! ~ Deb

Cafe in Rome - Create a dreamlike quality with an HDR Image...

For a dreamlike quality evocative of a memory, try using a vignette blur around your image.  The softness creates a nostalgic feeling, and taking away some of the detail makes the image a little more artistic.  The contrasting sharpness and softness adds a little interest and mystery to the composition.

The original image is a 3 exposure HDR 0, -2, +2 processed through Nik HDR Efex Pro. When I came across the scene, I had a general idea of the direction I wanted to take the image, emphasizing the wonderful texture, color and detail of this vintage Italian cafe. The subject often determines how the image might be processed, photorealistic, artistic or somewhere in between. The presets in Nik HDR Efex Pro gives the photographer a variety of starting points and directions to work with. You can experiment with a few ideas without taking up a lot of time. Have fun shooting and try something different!

Venice Gondolas... a painterly approach with Alien Skin Snap Art

Venice is most beautiful, like the rest of Italy, everything is a picture! These boats were right outside my window. They stayed docked most of the time, it was a lot colder than it looks! This photo was taken very early in the morning when the sky was beginning to take on color and a few clouds.  I wanted to create a artistic look for this image, as if an artist in Venice had painted this from the heart. My painting skills are somewhat limited but I truly enjoyed working with Alien Skin Snap Art. Brushstrokes of color and texture brought this photo to life using the Oil Paint filter. It was just what I had in mind when I made the picture! Buon giorno... have a wonderful day! Happy painting and please feel free to use code Deb0902 for anything Alien Skin!

Bicycles in Rome... HDR with Nik HDR Efex Pro

The city of Rome is a most exciting place! The cars are mostly small, and so are the motorcycles, actually scooters. I saw one Harley Davidson, and a ton of Vespa's.  I believe people live there by divine intervention. I have lived my entire life without ever getting close to getting hit by a car, but count three times in Rome including a police car while I was in the crosswalk!  I'm not counting the scrapings, and a few near hits (misses?) in taxi's, but, I lived to write about it.  :-) 

There are a lot of bicycles too, including this pair that I photographed in an alley. What attracted me to the composition was the texture of the stone and stucco, and the trio of posters above the bikes. It rained a lot in Italy, creating a look that the world was saturated with color. The bicycles were the perfect pairing for an HDR image. I made a series of three exposures using a Nikon D3s and 24-70mm lens, which is one of my favorites. 

Tips for HDR: Use a tripod, and remote release which is helpful for low light levels to prevent camera shake when pressing the shutter. Check the histogram to make sure there is detail in the exposure for highlights, and also the image for the shadows. You may only need to make three exposures in most cases, however in contrasty situations you may need to make additional exposures. Nik HDR Efex Pro worked beautifully to bring out the color and detail throughout the image. The presets are a great springboard to customize your image, and you can fine tune and save your settings to customize your HDR image. Have fun shooting!

A quiet evening in Rome...

Twilight is one of my most favorite times to photograph - the sky is often the most beautiful blue. The light was balanced between the night sky and all the city lights for just a few minutes. The water under the bridge seemed to soak up the most amazing reflections, creating a very painterly image. Early morning and late evening is the perfect time to walk along this section of the pedestrian bridge. The view is always impressive. Long exposures at twilight paint the water with golden light, giving it an entirely different texture and color than during the day.

I used an inexpensive but sturdy tripod called a Joby Gorillapod to make this picture. It easily holds a heavy camera and lens still during exposure. A cable release or self timer works well to reduce vibration that could be transferred to the camera during exposure. Placing the tripod directly on the widest part of the ledge on the bridge allowed for the best angle.

Another thought is consider white balance settings. A setting of Automatic created a very cool look, while Sunny, which was used here warmed things up bit and made the scene more inviting. If you have Live View on your camera, you can scroll through the various white balance settings to see which one gives you the look that will complement your visual story. Finishing touches from Nik Viveza 2 made it easy to quickly brighten and dark selected areas without complex masking. Your coupon code for anything Nik is DSANDIDGE. Have fun shooting!  Ciao...

PS.. If you want to learn more about twilight and night photography, please join me at Florida's Birding & Photofest in St. Augustine this April. I'll be covering, twilight photography, HDR, infrared and everything creative!

Think about it...

Rome is a fantastic city, there is a lot to ponder. The art, the music, the food, and for the photographer, everything is a picture! There isn't enough room in a day to fit everything in, but that is the fun part. When taking pictures, I like to start with the wide shot, and then move in closer for all the detail shots like the one above. Think about the background and what's going on behind the subject.  Consider lens choice, aperture/shutter speed, and angle to capture a variety of different and interesting photos.  Most important, have fun shooting!

In case you were wondering where in the world Santa is???

Just in case you were wondering where in the world Santa is... he's in Venice on a gondola! All six of him! This might be a tradition here, in any case it was a lot of fun being surrounded by so many rowing Santa's!  I hope everyone is ready for the holidays, and for the upcoming New Year. 2010 went by really fast!  Photo tip... Always have your camera ready! Have fun shooting... ~ Deb