Too many people!

Flying Scotsman always attracts a big crowd, but by getting in the right place they can be cloned out without spoiling the picture too much.

HDR Painting

HDR painting is a setting on the camera, which as the name suggests creates a painting effect. Here are a few examples with HDR set to "High"

I’m afraid I have stopped posting to this blog for quite a while, too many other things to do. Once I take a batch of photos it seems to take a while to process and store them all by which time I have another batch. I have of late started to use the 16x9 setting on the camera as I bought a lead that connects it to the widescreen TV and 16 x 9 fills the screen nicely. Landscapes are quite nice in 16 x 9 format, here’s an example from around Burrator Reservoir taken last weekend.

I’m starting to use Adobe Photoshop Elements a little more as I was recently asked to take some publicity photos for a local drama group. (Shiphay Amateur Drama Group) Click here to see their Web Site

They wish to advertise their next production, a Comedy entitled “ Dick Barton - Special Agent”, based on an old BBC Radio program that was so popular at the time that it was on the radio every night after the evening news.

I was hoping to take the pictures outside, where I am more at home, but freezing cold weather put a stop to that and we took all the pictures inside. One of the main issues I have with indoors is the way the flash is either too strong or it creates shadows. However, with Photoshop a lot of the unwanted backgrounds and shadows can be removed or blurred out.

For this shot I took advantage of the low light capability of the Sony A57 Camera by leaving the flash off, letting the camera set the ISO, in this case to ISO 3200, producing a slightly grainy finish.

As the Stories were originally set in the 1940’s and 1950’s I decided Black and White may be appropriate for some of the shots, but I kept the camera on the colour setting, creating the BW versions during the editing. This way I always have a colour original if I want it.

Here's the original picture

Using the Photoshop quick selection tool I picked out the subject and moved them to a new layer, I then cloned out most of the distracting background items in the original layer and them used the surface blur tool on the original layer to blur everything, before merging the subject back into the picture. I cropped the picture slightly giving the result shown below.

I did try a version with everything in the background removed, but it became a little too flat, so I left the door, frame and light in the picture and this was the preferred version that was used. I gave it back to the group so they could add their own Words to the poster and the final result is shown above.

Project 366 - A Picture every day of the year (2012)

I am pleased to say I did manage to keep up this project to the end of 2012, posting 366 pictures on Facebook (I actually posted 367, one day has two pictures.) I'm not continuing it this year I would raher take pictures in bunches on reasonable days than trying to find one every day.

if you are interested in viewing the picturess the albums are at:-

Part One - January to June

and

Part Two- July to December

You don't have to have a facebook account to view them.

A change of Camera

In October 2012 I decided to change my Bridge camera for a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR. After much 'umming' and 'arring' I decided on the Sony A57 and was pleased with the extra facilities when I got this picture of a gorilla in the Ape House at Paignton Zoo. Flash is not permitted and my previous camera could not cope with the subdued lighting in the Ape House.

One of the recent arrivals at Paignton Zoo, a rare Asiatic Lion cub.

Using Photoshop, I have converted the background to greyscale so the cub stands out more. Click on the picture for a bigger version