Another Cool Trick

Well, Gary has been deep in the jungles with the cannibals for over a week now and I seem to be getting antsy. He is able to call me daily - but just quick calls - but better than nothing. My son is also home so I am not as crazed as I am when I am alone - but crazed I am slowly getting ...

And when I am crazed ... I Photoshop!

Discovered something new today. It is a poor mans version to Photoshops Multi Image HDR Pro (High Dynamic Range Imaging). You can take photos with your camera with something called 'bracketing' that will take the exact photo at different exposures. This command will read them all in, stack them up and let you use the best from each of them.

HOW COOL IS THAT?

Except I haven't used 'bracketing' (Oh, yes I have ... somewhere - another post when I remember where the heck the photos are ...) and the tutorial said that you could use it with a single image to bring out the 'full tonal quality' or something like that - what ever the hell that means (OK, I know, but it just sounds so .... snooty).

So, I took a crappy photograph of mine - but of something I liked. It was a dark day and my exposure was set low so I could shoot in camera raw, but just using the regular .jpg file I accomplished the following:

Original photograph (I CANNOT take a straight photo to save my life...):

Straightening it and lightening it by using the blending mode 'screen' in a layer:

Then, just under the regular: image - adjustments - there is something called HDR Toning. I hit it and this photo popped up:

There were more options, but I liked the default.


I then used the spot healing brush to try to get rid of some of the sea spray spots that were on my lens and sharpen the image and voilà a better photo (at least I think so ...):

I will really, really try to stop posting ....


really