Site & HDR News and Notes
August 28, 2010 by Kivus · View Comments
Just some assorted news and notes about the site and some HDR developments:
- I’ve settled into a bi-daily photo posting schedule (the every two days bi-daily, not the twice a day bi-daily). I think I’ve now got enough of a backlog of photos that even if I didn’t take pictures for a while, I should be able to keep that up. My writings, reviews, process documents, etc…won’t count towards this. It will be exclusively front page images and snapshots that will be on the bi-daily schedule.
- Speaking of writings, I’ve added two new tabs to the top navigation: reviews and process. The review page will lead to all of my reviews (some of which I forgot I had even written). The process page will be an examination of how I create certain images, blog postings, and other item. Currently, I’ve got one in the works for my Worldwide Photo Walk submission and one about how I prepare an image for printing using Aperture, Genuine Fractals, and Nik’s Sharpener Pro.
- I made two major HDR related purchases recently: (1) Nik Software’s new HDR plugin, HDR Efex Pro and (2) Trey Ratcliff’s new HDR instructional DVD. HDR Efex Pro became a no-brainer when I learned that if you already had the Nik Complete Collection, you got the new HDR software for $99. As far as the DVD goes, I feel that Trey is the master of HDR, and since there is no way I’d be able to get to one of his workshops, I figured the HDR would be the next best thing. I have pretty high expectations for the DVD and I will be doing a review as soon as I have received my copy and had time to really sit down and process it.
Just Ask to Take the Picture
August 20, 2010 by Kivus · View Comments
Blindfolded Eating
If you have listed to Rick Sammon for any length of time, you will have heard him tell the story of how he asked a local firehouse if he could take some portraits. He explains that he asked to take portraits of the firefighters in exchange for providing them with some 8”x10” prints of the photos he took. Though I had never tried anything similar to this, I would pretty much give the advice “just ask” whenever someone said they wished they could take a picture of something.
In the past few weeks, Elyssa and I have driven past Cedarwoods Arabians a number of times, and each time Elyssa would stare out the window at the horses. I figured, with her birthday approaching, what better time to test out Rick’s theory about asking. Not surprisingly, the process was quite easy. I went to the horse farm one afternoon and talked to the girl at the front desk. She gave me the owner’s card, and a phone call later, I had my permission to take photos. It was a pretty painless process.
One thing that Rick commonly points out, and that I will emphasize, is to make sure you deliver on your promises of prints. I made sure to go through my photos as soon as I got back home, picked out a couple that I wanted to process for prints, and prepped them for sending to WHCC. Not only is this important for your credibility, but it’s also important to establishing credibility for photographers generally. How would you feel if you went and asked someone to take photos and they said no because the last person who promised him/her prints did not deliver?
So, once again, what is the lesson to learn from Rick Sammon? If there’s something, or someone, you really want to take a photo of, just ask.
Three's a Crowd
Time for some HDR News
August 11, 2010 by Kivus · View Comments
(UPDATE: Trey Ratcliff’s HDR DVD ( Basic Edition and Premium Edition ) are now officially available for sale on his website. I’ve embedded his preview at the end of the post).
Last night was kind of a big night on the HDR news front, with two major bits of news breaking.
First, Photomatix 4′s beta program is now open to the general public. Photomatix is the leading HDR creation program and their new beta has some solid improvements over previous versions. I have used the beta some, however, their lack of an update to the Aperture plugin means that I have not used it as often as Photomatix 3. With Nik Software’s HDR plugin (most likely titled HDR Efex Pro) getting closer to a release, HDR Soft had to start getting Photomatix 4 in front of more people.
Also, on the instruction front, a huge announcement from Trey Ratcliff. His HDR DVD should be available on Friday (yes, the 13th…gullp). This DVD is going to follow him in both Photomatix and Photoshop as he creates his HDR images. The DVD will be available in a Basic Edition for $197 and a Premium Edition for $397. I consider Trey to be the foremost authority on HDR Photography, and I cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD. I hope to have a review of it up in a couple of weeks.
UPDATE: The following is video Trey created to show the type of things that will be available in his HDR Training Video:
Worldwide Photo Walk 2010
August 2, 2010 by Kivus · View Comments
Last year’s Worldwide Photo Walk was one of the first photography related events I ever attended. I was nervous. I had only owned a camera for 6 months, and though the literature on the photo walk website said that you could bring a point and shoot camera, I figured I’d be the only one who didn’t have a SLR on the walk. Well, I was right about the SLR thing, but I ended up having a great time. In fact, one of the images from that walk is currently hanging on my wall. Also, It made me really excited for this year’s photo walk.
This year, I chose to attend the Cary photo walk instead of the Raleigh one. I have spent some time in downtown Raleigh, but I was looking for something a little bit different and thought there might be something in Cary that would catch my eye. Also, I brought someone along (Elyssa, who some might call a ringer, with her photojournalism degree and all) so I knew I’d know at least one person on the walk. I also figured that my buddy Eric, who I met on last year’s photo walk, would be there; a back injury kept him from attending.
I was once again brought my trusty Nikon P6000 but I wasn’t too worried about being the only person on the walk with a point and shoot (which I was). I did bring my ZipShot tripod (I think I was the only one with any type of tripod) to do some HDR work though. The area we shot In felt almost like a ghost town (I think we saw maybe 2 or 3 other people the whole morning) but I guess 90 degree heat at 8 am on a Saturday morning will do that. Unlike last year where I ended up with one of my favorite all time pictures, I didn’t get any shots that I thought were top tier. I did end up with a bunch of shots just below that though (I’ve already posted one of them, and I’m sure that I’ll be putting up more as time goes on).
Part of the experience in these photo walks is the social component that comes along with it. After the walk, we met up at Chatham Street Cafe. I’ll start off by saying their French Toast is delicious, and I figure I’ll drive back out there purely to have that again. The conversations that were had were a mix or photography and, strangely enough, computer programing. Apparently a number of the other photo walkers worked at SAS and all had a programming background. There was also some light discussion about legal issues since one of the walkers was a prosecutor and both me and Elyssa are currently in law school. I’ll leave out the details of the cases that were discussed, but let’s say that they were something right out of Law and Order:SVU. After about an hour / hour and a half of conversation, we all headed back to our cars. Luckily, a train was coming by as we were walking back to the parking lot and we all managed to get a few more pictures. It was a well timed ending to a really great morning.
A New HDR Contender? Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro
July 29, 2010 by Kivus · View Comments
This HDR image comes from Nik Software's HDR Sneak Peak. Image rights are retained by the original copyright holder.
UPDATE: Details about Nik Software’s HDR Efex Pro have been released, including a slightly more targeted release date (October 2010) and a price point ($159). The site mentions that if you purchased the Nik Complete Collection in July 2010 or later, you get the HDR product for free. The site does not mention that if you purchased the complete collection before July 2010, you can get HDR Efex Pro for $99 if you pre-order (I confirmed this when I made my purchase of the software). Additionally, they created an announcement video which is embedded at the end of this post.
UPDATE: Rick Sammon was recently on an episode of Nik Radio talking about Nik’s HDR Efex Pro. I’ve put in a few notes from his appearance.
Today I attended a Nik Software webinar on their upcoming HDR product. There is currently no official news as to what the HDR product is going to be called, but the title bar did say HDR Efex Pro (which would make sense as it would fit in well with their other products like Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro) [UPDATE: Rick Sammon referred to the product as HDR Efex Pro in his interview]. The instructor was using the Lightroom version of the plugin, but mentioned that it would be available for Photoshop and Aperture as well (he also mentioned that the plugins would be in 64-bit.) There was a question about a “stand alone” version like Photomatix offers, but the instructor seemed to think that was not in the works. I have not used Lightroom to any large degree, but it looked like the process for opening the plugin is very similar to the process I use for creating a HDR with Photomatix from within Aperture (namely, just select the group of images you want to use and then select the plugin). The instructor was unable to answer a question about how the interface for selecting images would work in Photoshop, but speculated it would probably be under the “automate” menu (much like Adobe’s HDR Pro is). You can also use the plugin on a single RAW file (the examples of this turned out quite well).
The HDR Efex interface looks like a “best of” from Silver Efex Pro and Viveza 2. There are the presets from Silver Efex on the left side and then a control point / slider interface on the right that looks very much like Viveza 2. Of particular note are two sliders: (1) structure, which is something that is creeping into all NIk products and that I frequently used in Silver Efex Pro (it’s also available in Viveza 2); (2) warmth, which I specifically asked about and the instructor demonstrated (it provides an effect very similar to the “Brilliance and Warmth” filter found in Color Efex Pro; the instructor did not know off hand if the algorithms are the same, but he demonstrated the effect and it looked very similar). HDR Efex also includes some advanced vignetting controls (including some vignetting presets) and Nik’s familiar “Control Points” interface, that provides the ability to make very targeted adjustments without the use of masking (Anyone who’s used any of Nik’s products, especially Viveza 2, knows how powerful these are).
This is the HDR Efex interface that was used during the webinar. As with any piece of software that hasn't been released yet, there is still a chance this interface could change.
The initial preset that was applied to the first image was very much a “realistic” HDR. In fact, the image looked just like a well exposed, well lit, standard image. There were a number of presets that the instructor previewed, some of them looking better than others The “subtle HDR” preset looked very similar to the Trey Ratcliff inspired style of HDR that I frequently used. [UPDATE: Rick mentioned how both realistic and surrealistic HDR images are easy to create with HDR Efex Pro] Additionally, there was a black and white preset (I’m not sure if it would be better to create the HDR image in color and then take the image into Silver Efex Pro for black and white conversion, but I have a feeling that I would use that workflow) and then a “vintage” preset that created a really interesting effect that combined both HDR and a faded, desaturated look. The instructor mentioned that the plugin would have “anti-ghosting” functionality (pretty much a “must have” feature now), but did not give any demonstrations of it. [UPDATE: Rick mentioned that the anti-ghosting in HDR Efex Pro is very strong. He mentioned that you can take out the ghosting "quickly" and "easily". Additionally, he said the alignment features of HDR Efex Pro were good.]
The biggest question of the webinar was, as expected: What is the release date? Apparently the company line on this is “late summer” (I’ve heard it from 3 Nik represenatives). The version of the software being used by the instructor was listed as “Alpha 2”, and there were a few performance hiccups present, so it seems likely that there is a bit of work left before it’s released to the public. Also, there was no information available on the pricing of the software.
Ultimately, the webinar left me really excited to try out the software. The early rumors I heard were that the software was going to be really geared to “realistic” HDR images instead of “surrealistic” ones, however, the instructor demonstrated that the software could be used to create images of both styles. Out of the HDR programs I’ve used, Photomatix is still my clear favorite, however, HDR Efex Pro looks like it could be a strong contender. For me, it will probably all come down to how it handles lights at dusk…
An example HDR image, processed with Photomatix, to show how nicely it handles lights.
UPDATE: Nik’s HDR Efex Pro announcement video, featuring Trey Ratcliff
