Happy 2011

Happy New Year and hope that you all enjoyed the festive period. Lets hope that 2011 is a good one for all of us.

What better way to start the year than some seasonal light painting.

Amazing what you can do with a couple of £1 solar garden lights!!

Shoes - A Girls Best Friend!

On the evening when I took the photos in the Foxy Lady post I stayed the night in a bedroom that would be better described as the girls walk in wardrobe as it was full of clothes, shoes etc.

Personally, I'm not in to women's shoes (and don't really see what the fuss is about!) but thought the shoe rack on the back of the bedroom wall might make an original photo so took a quick snap before heading to bed.

I had a bit of a play around with the image, adding a little colour etc.



As usual, click on the image to enlarge.

More Beautiful You

Back a month or so ago, I blogged about some friends that were starting up a website. I had helped them out with some seasonal photos.

Now that the site has been up for a while, I thought I would post a few more of the pictures from the photo shoot.

Why not have a look at their site at www.beautyu.co.uk and take a look.

Airbrushing - Because You're Worth It!

I have been doing a few projects recently that have involved some requested photo retouching / airbrushing. I use both Photoshop and Paintshop Pro so experimented with different techniques in each until I came up with something that I was fairly happy with.

This process does differ depending on the photo but I now use a general routine for the smoothing out of skin without making the subject look fake and also trying to keep the important details.

I was looking for a model but as no one was available I had to take a quick snapshot of myself to work on. After a long weekend and lots of late nights, a retouch was just what I needed!!!

Here is the before shot, straight out of the camera.



Here is the same shot again after some retouching.



Click on the images to enlarge as the differences are more noticeable.

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Here are the steps that I look to achieve this.

Opened the original image in Photoshop and removed any blemishes with the spot healing tool

Duplicated the background layer and applied the dust and scratches filter with a radius of about 3 pixels and a threshold of 0

Applied a gaussian blur with a radius of about 1.4 pixels

Applied some texture to the image by using the add noise filter (1%)

Added a layer mask revealing all and filled the mask with black

Set the colour to white and used a paintbrush to brush in the new smooth skin

Lightened up the areas around the eyes and brightened up the eyes themselves

Applied some adjustment layers (curves and colour balance)

This technique does seem to work better on photos of women but then we are used to them having much smoother skin than us guys anyway :)

Life in Miniature

Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a process in which a life-size pictures are manipulated (using an image editor) to give the impression of a scale model.

I have seen a number of really good ones online and thought I'd give it a quick try. Click on the images to enlarge as they look better in that size.





They are not fantastic but for 5mins effort who am I to complain! I think that finding the right photograph is the hardest part of this process.

To see more of these images, why not visit the Tilt-Shift Miniature Fakes group on Flickr

Flashy Motor!

After taking the shot of the pillar box in my previous post I was parked off the road so decided to have a go at experimenting using the off camera flash to photograph my car.

The result is a merge of 3 photos taken in near complete darkness.

Here are the details:-
Photo 1 - Using off camera flash to light the car - 20 second exposure
Photo 2 - Off camera flash on the back seat to light interior - 30 second exposure
Photo 3 - No flash. Caught light trails of passing vehicles - 30 second exposure

Symmetry

I have seen many articles which report things like symmetrical human faces are more beautiful. I wonder if the same thing goes for photos?!?

Cloning is a Crime

Sorting through some stuff the other day, I found an old BB gun which I thought I'd use in some photos.

Here is my attempt at a multiplicity shot using the gun as a prop - created by merging 3 photos of moi.

Terminated!

Just for a quick break with all the snow and winter shots I thought I'd post something different that I was messing around with last night.

It's a photo of me merged with the Terminator!!

More Photoshoot Pictures And Setup

Following on from my Photoshoot With A Friend I thought I would post a photo of some of the kit I used.

I borrowed a couple of large fans and used clamps and cable ties to secure to a step ladder to get the correct height. I was hoping that the fans would be powerful enough to give the impression that some of the shots were taken in high wind but unfortunately they were not! I also attached a lamp to the ladder so I could experiment with the lighting a little.



Here are a few more shots taken on the day using this setup that I have processed. As you can see on the first image I have been experimenting with textures again.

Wetsuit Required

One of the first portrait shots taken with the Nifty Fifty. This is also another example of using textures on my photographs.

Sometimes Life Can Be a Blur

Days, months & years seem to go by so quickly the older that you get. The pace of life can sometimes be a blur!

On Flickr I have been following the exceptional work of a photographer called rosiehardy. She produces some amazing and creative work and I wish I had a fraction of her talent. I read this post on her and aknacer's (another exceptional photographer) blog about using textures and was inspired to give it a go.


Here is the finished image - better viewed large (click on image)


Here is the original


It was a bit of a quick basic go at the technique but I am pleased with the results.

Got the Weight Of The World Upon My Shoulders

Ever feel like you've got the weight of the world resting upon your shoulders?

Anyone For Cards?

Playing around with a deck of playing cards whilst bored one evening a few weeks back.

Higher than an 8.....A King!


We three kings...

Urban Art?

Took this picture on a recent trip to Prague. It was on of the most graffitied European cities that I've visited but most of what I saw was mainly just tagging which some may see as art but I'm still undecided.

New Splash of Colour for the VW

I was playing around with one of the VW camper images from a previous post last night experimenting with changing the colour of the paintwork. Here are the results

Playing with Colours

After seeing some interesting examples on youtube.com using Photoshop I have been using Paintshop Pro to experiment with changing eye and hair colours in photographs.

Here is a photograph of Angelina Jolie


And here it is again after my changes


Then I had some fun with my own eyes (natural colour is on top left)!

Don't Lose Your Head

More fun with merging images...



[Edit: Back of t-shirt neck added - 18/09/07]