Tag : compositing in Photoshop

So this was fun. Sunsets are about my favorite thing, but alone they are only colorful, but often lack interest. Add some trees and Wow. This first image is 2 part with a tree from the Oregon Coast and a Loveland, CO sunset. The second is a tree from Rocky Mountain National Park, slightly altered, a foreground from a rocky hill near St. George, Utah, and once again a Loveland, CO sunset. Simple but about all the color you’d ever […]

It’s been awhile since I created something new in space art, but I was inspired and had to experiment. This is the result. The number of layers is almost astronomical.

Thanks to Avalon’s Inspirational at Deviant Art for the dress. I love artists that share. So this is the last of my queens. This one is ten images for the girl and five for the background. The background is the snowy range in Wyoming. My partial color blindness has apparently spilled over into the skin and hair of my Spring Queen, so with a little help they are back to a more natural color. Unfortunately, going through the desaturation process […]

Yet another composite with a dozen or so elements. In this particular attempt, perhaps the over bright eyes are a dead giveaway that there is something suspicious about the face. However, these are minor fixes if for instance this was a project for a client. Skin tone and color, eye color, hair color and so on are all individual elements and are thus easily altered. The background itself is a composite consisting of six more elements. The question of course […]

This is one of those composites that took considerable work. This is certainly an image I can’t copyright because of the parts I have borrowed from the Internet. I haven’t had the opportunity to photograph fancy dresses that fit a specific theme like Queens, nor do I have crowns or scepters. I never use images that have copyrights or watermarks, but still you can’t be sure if the artist would make claim for a particular element in the off chance […]

While all of the following landscapes would stand alone, it’s always interesting adding the human element in a way that the model also seems to be enjoying the view. In the above image, the superimposed model is slightly out of proportion, but in art you do what you want. It would have been easy enough to have chopped off her feet to make her appear closer, but then those fantastic shoes wouldn’t have been visible. I could have also made […]

The following I call Arctic Queen. Please note that the outfit is borrowed from the Internet, but the sky, background and combined faces are images I have taken and then combined in this composite. I find it interesting how the final product doesn’t look totally real even though all the elements are real. The face looks a bit like the 3d faces you see in fantasy art. I can’t decide if she is stunningly beautiful or fake. For now I’ll […]

Once again I’m borrowing images from the web. The male in the foreground plus Katie are overlaid in the composite. Light shadows are added.

More fun from our September shoot. Finding an appropriate background isn’t always easy, and in instances like these, some of the backgrounds are borrowed off the Internet, in which cases I do not copyright the image nor do I make the image for sale. Hope you enjoy this one.

This time period shot is from the Fort Collins Digital Camera Club September Model shoot. Matching lighting to a composite environment is always a critical element. Our lovely model fits the period and feel perfectly. The setting is borrowed from the movie Far From the Madding Crowd.

Shooting Comic Con was a challenge. The light was too poor to not use a flash, and the only flash I had was the built in flash on my camera. Outdoors was super bright and sunny. Although the event ran 12 hours, I was out of battery in 6. Still, the whole experience was great, and some of the costumes were amazing.

I had no idea anyone did the costume thing for anything but Halloween. Recently we did a photo shoot for a couple attending Comic Con in Fort Collin, CO. I decided I’d attend for the opportunity of photographing subjects that would be fun to composite, and perhaps lure people to my blog. Watch for more in the coming weeks. The event is Saturday the 12th of September.

I’m afraid to say I’m out of touch. I had no idea that there are conventions where people go to play their favorite characters from video games, comics, and movies. For our FCDCC portrait shoot for August, we had two such models that were acting out parts from Mass Effect. Our models played Miranda Lawson and Commander Shepard. The detail spent on costumes was quite amazing. Above are our pair in a starship about to land on a planet in […]

Compositing allows a lot of choices, and a lot of control since everything is in layers. You can for instance blur a grainy sky and sharpen the foreground. In this case the foreground has a mosaic texture while other parts of the image are photo realistic. My model wore a hat for part of the shoot, but not this particular shot, so I borrowed the hat from another image. It’s not unusual to change the color of outfits, and I […]

This young lady came in a t-shirt. Her mom was the model, but we talked her into posing anyway. What a doll. I hope she doesn’t mind me saying so. This is one of those Sound of Music shots with nature, and I especially like her in the hat and the pretty white dress. The grass in the foreground is composited over the legs of the model that was wearing the dress. The sky is also photoshopped in. All in […]

Occasionally I do something that ends up on two of my three blogs. The cover mockups I’ve done are also on my Fiction with Foresight blog. Because I do book covers and illustrations, I felt these needed to be both places. Above is my Vogue mockup. I always hope this is as fun for the model. I have no clue what Vogue Magazine might think. So, if you do one you have to do two, right? This sexy dress cried […]

It was a rather rare event to have two male models at our July event. Most guys aren’t into such things, but both our male models were very professional. It’s probably easier for males to get jobs since there isn’t as much competition, and they probably aren’t judged as critically. With girls, if she weighs a pound more than some client wants, tough. As a photographer I try not to judge and I would never say anything to a model […]

Fort Collins Digital Camera Club has an anual portrait shoot. This year we had some really great models. For obvious reasons I don’t give out their names and contact information, but if you’d like to make contact you can email me with your intentions and I’ll be happy to pass the request along. Winter Moon turned out to be one of my favorite composites. Our model in this case was super fun and very professional, and stunning. It’s nice to […]

At top is an image as taken along I-70 west of Green River Utah headed east. The sun was close to setting and the light was magnificent. The original shot was interesting and could have been cropped and made more vibrant, and perhaps that would have sufficed. Just above I’ve added a foreground which I shot further down the road. The edge of the road in the lower left corner wasn’t attractive so below I’ve added a bush. I could […]

Welcome to Photo Innovations. This blog is for the non-purists who have no problem manipulating images. Since this is an introduction I will let you in on my passions, my philosophy about photography, and my justification for altering images. First and foremost, I feel photography should be fun. Of course, I’m not into photography to make a living, although I’d like to support my hobby. The fact that I’m a hobbyist may be all too evident, however my passion for […]

Yes, I’ve neglected posting. For most of 2013 I have been audio editing my novels: Silent Trek the Trilogy (Silent Wave, Silent Rising, Silent Landing) Harvesting Terra, Resurrecting Terra, Planet Passing, & The Future Teller. The new editions should be published early in 2014. I have also neglected my Photo Art, but should get back to my routine of blogging in 2014. It should be an exciting year.  

It’s difficult to not be amazed at how technology impacts our lives. It wasn’t but ten years ago I was arguing with a so-called expert at a camera store that digital was the future. In fifty years maybe was his irritated reply. Although it took longer than I expected, there was certainly a turning point in 2001-2002 that finally made digital cameras popular. The quality of images up to that point was the biggest deterrent for any photographer, and certainly […]

I’ve tried this sky in dozens of composites and love it in everyone I try. This particular sunset yielded about 50 spectacular shots, and many were stunningly different depending on the direction and the time of the shot. Good color probably lasted for 45 minutes. I photograph the sky all the time, and try to be observant of every sunset. Great sunsets are unusual, and superb sunsets are rare enough that you don’t want to miss them. Cliff Dunes seems […]

This is a project I started in 2012, but is my first post for 2013. Before I get into my project I want relay my most recent problem with trying to stay up to date with software. I just went through some trying times with Adobe. They had a whole group of corrupted license files and my CS6 Extended was in that group. Adobe doesn’t make it easy. Rather than give you an email, they expect you to sit by […]

I sometimes think humanity would be much better served without all the superstition, and yes, buying into nonsense is prevelant in religion. I guess the rapture just didn’t unfold as expected, or perhaps no one was worthy. Of course I could be wrong since it’s still the 21st and I’m jumping the gun. I’m predicting this greeting will be around, so for those who believe in a future, try and make a difference and perhaps some day we’ll wake up […]

Sometimes choosing the right sky is simple. Sometimes it’s not. What’s always amazing is how the sky changes the character of the image. Note this is a slightly different angle of Delicate Arch from the previous post. In image one the sunset is one of the most unusual I’ve ever photographed. In Image two is a bank of clouds topped with a thunderhead. In Image three is an unusual array of clouds in the east at sunset. In Image four […]

I’ve visited Arches National Park more times than I can count on my fingers. I can’t say without going through photos if it’s been more if I include my toes, but nevertheless as many times as I’ve been there I’ve never witnessed a really wicked storm. If you sat at Delicate Arch everyday for years, chances are you’d never see the type of storm in this picture. I hadn’t thought about that much until I saw a picture of the […]

Sometimes images just don’t look finished without a frame or border. Sometimes the border can be a thin white or black line. Typically, if I’m going to bother I want something more. Vedauwoo Pronghorn is of course a composite. The separate elements are the sky (background), the rock formations and trees (mid ground), the pond (foreground), the reflection in the pond from the mid ground, the pronghorn, and the pronghorn reflection. I saved a jpeg version of the PSD, then […]

My photo blog is not intended to be political, however, I often find I need my Photoshop skills to create images for my OsumPODS and Fiction blogs. Without Photoshop, getting your message across in pictures would be far more difficult. I doubt I’m a good enough artist to even do a really good cartoon, and once again Photoshop would be my software of choice should I decide to turn my work into a cartoon. My depiction of Obama driving a […]

Yes, there was a full moon, but the one superimposed is about twice as big. This isn’t to say the real shot wasn’t impressive, just not as much. And of course because the sun hadn’t quite set, the sky wasn’t dark with stars, and there weren’t rocks for my model to stand on, so the picture has changed a little. Vedauwoo is an enchanting place in southern Wyoming for those of you who haven’t been there. It’s a favorite place […]

This is one of my favorite images, thus the opening screen for this blog. Note the amount of cropping for the slideshow and the full image below. From time to time it’s fun to do an image just for the surreal beauty. Imagine what it would take to make this shot for real. How often does a sunset come along that’s truly unusual? What are the odds that you’d find rocks on the beach with lichen? Then you’d need a […]

Hello space art lovers. The Art of Digital Space Art 1&2 are now available in the Kindle version at Amazon.com. The publications cost just 99 cents each, and are full of useful hints for Photoshop enthusiasts. A Nook version will be available soon, and I hope to have them on iTunes within a month. I would like some feedback, so please leave a review. If you like the books, please tell your friends.

A nice thing about having a personalized desktop is that you get to see favorite images every time you open your computer. Dubois Hills (2007) is a fairly early foray into compositing. The hills were pretty, but the sky was blah and the foreground was messy. Added are a new sky, some brush, a horse, and of course shadows to make the new elements fit in. Although my skills in Photoshop have advanced since this rendition, I can find no […]

Unusual skies, unusual rocks, and fields of flowers can turn an average shot into something spectacular. Vedauwoo, a popular rock climbing area in Wyoming is west of Cheyenne and east of Laramie. Off season, there is plenty of solitude.   This particular shot is about a half mile east of the main entrance. Although the original shot is interesting enough with a dirt path leading to the rocks, adding a foreground of flowers give the shot a pristine feeling. Although […]

Using our solar system as an example, ringed planets should be fairly common throughout the universe. Having two in close proximity is far less likely, but orbits could create some close encounters somewhere. If not, it’s still fun to speculate. Space certainly has its oddities. Double ringed planets was easy enough to execute. Duplicating the planet and rings, then sizing and changing colors is about all it took. I probably spent and equal amount of time scooting nebulas around. This […]

In photography, you seldom have a choice where all the elements are placed in a photograph. Sure, you can move your camera for a different angle, or sometimes you can move your subject if it’s convenient. In space art, the choices are endless. In the following images, I have over a hundred layers, and thus an infinite number of choices as where to place things. Even my star fields are a number of layers. The series I’m currently working on […]

The ocean, and coastal scenes seem to adapt well to space art. Reflections in water always add an intriguing element. Just south of Coos Bay, Oregon is Arago Park, where cliffs are eroded into other worldly features. Taking day shots and turning them into night shots doesn’t always work, especially if there are strong shadows to deal with. Fortunately it was overcast when I grabbed this shot. In compositing such images together, I strive to keep them somewhat believable. Fortunately, […]

Digital Space Art is always fun, but sometimes somethings turns out beyond your expectations that may incite an unexpected reaction. Sometimes things are just bizarre. Aftermath 2 is just such an image. It’s a composite with literally hundreds of layers, and probably almost impossible to replicate no matter how talented you are at Photoshop. If I started from scratch and borrowed all the same elements from my space art library, I might come close, but I’d never get exactly the […]

Digital Space Art has become a passion of mine. Compositing in Photoshop is fun, but imagining alien worlds makes it a challenge that lets your artistic creativity go wild. If you are bored with the norm, perhaps you might have some fun creating your own solar system or universe. If not, perhaps you’ll be satisfied just looking at mine. The Art of Digital Space Art (part 1 & 2) will soon be available in eBook format from Amazon and Barnes […]

I am in the process of publishing two books on the Art of Digital Space Art. The process has inspired me to create some new images. My latest 2 are panoramas, which I seldom do and will not fit in the format well, so I will not be including them in the new books. However, I’m always anxious to share new work in hopes of getting some feedback. Fisher Coast is a composite that combines parts from places I would […]

A recent trip to South Dakota allowed me to get some decent shots, but nothing amazing. The weather was decent, light was good, and there were even interesting clouds. However, when the sun set, it wasn’t spectacular. Shortly after getting back to Loveland, Co., I caught a sunset one night that had great color. The problem was the angle of the sun was wrong, so I went back though my library of sunsets and found a similar sunset with the […]

Although our stay in the Bisti Badlands was short, the number of usable shots was amazing. As I continue to play, I realize that another trip will have to be added to my agenda. The landscape in the Bisti yields to my alien worlds more than any place I have ever visited. Bisti Evolution (above) seems a natural place for a lava flow burning its way down natural erosion. This is one of those creations I’ll probably play with, but […]

The Rocky Mountain Lazy J bar S Ranch is a great venue for a photo shoot. This year’s emphasis was on portraiture, and although portraiture isn’t my gig, it’s always fun with exuberant participants. For me it is all about postproduction anyway. Paige Riding (above) was one of those shots where the background was full of distracting element since the shot was taken inside their outdoor arena. It’s not that it didn’t make a good shot, but with the right […]

The landscape in the Bisti is very neutral which actually works quite well for manipulation. Also, the sculpting shows evidence of natural water flows, which also adds character to the strange formations. In Exploring Bisti (above), I show a lone hiker gazing at a ringed planet, which is partially obscured by clouds. Multiple layers of the sky sandwich the planet to make it appear in a distant plane. To overlay just the clouds, I used color select in Photoshop on […]

A recent trip to the Bisti Badlands just south of Farmington, New Mexico yielded some interesting landscapes. The wind was blowing, the sky was gray, and we gagged on smoke from intense fires in Arizona. Yet what I found to shoot more than made up for the less than perfect conditions. Hope Landing depicts a vast dry valley linked with jagged cliffs. Hope is my flying saucer that I developed in Silent Landing, the third book in Silent Trek, the […]

Creating spheres is very easy with Photoshop. Finding good textures that give good results is another matter. My daughter-in-law occasionally bakes bread in a cast iron pot, and the loaves have incredible texture. I’ve made most of my planets from just a few textures. With a little manipulation, such as using inverse, saturation, and hue, you can have planets of most any color. Add a few clouds and a shadow, and perhaps an outer glow for an atmosphere, and for […]

Creating out of the ordinary images is much of the fun with space art. To believe that such places could exist is pure speculation. In art, what does it matter? Combining bluffs can make for an interesting skyline. It’s hard to imagine that night lighting would allow for such brilliance, but who is to say on an alien planet with an alien atmosphere. Adding the reflection only intensifies the feeling of an otherworldly landscape in Alien Butte 2 (above). Winter […]

In any art you can let your imagination run wild, but certainly space gives you an infinite pallet. Most of what’s out there is very random and often stranger than one can imagine. Although some space art falls in the amateurish category, most of what you find on the web is really quite exceptional. Some goes too far for my taste, and a good deal of it delves into science fiction with alien spacecraft. Until I can build digital models […]

Weathered bluffs near Page Arizona, and the bottom of Hell’s Half Acre in Wyoming make up this alien landscape in Butterfly Nebula Alienscape (above). The planet is a spherized loaf of bread, and Butterfly Nebula was made from smoke. The elements are combined with a star field created in Photoshop. Artic Sunset is the 7 edition of this layout. Once again this is a composite with multiple layers. I would love to see this hanging on a wall in a […]

Although beautiful, our moon is the most intriguing feature in the heavens until you start looking deeper. Yet it’s not hard to envision planets that sit with windows to spectacular galaxies or exploding nebula. There are, no doubt, many vantage points in space full of eye candy. Alien looking landscapes on Earth are not unusual, and of course one of my favorites is the Garden of Eden in Arches National Park. Thus Eden Galaxy (above) shows what it might look […]

The climb to the top of the Great Wall starts once again at the Courthouse Bridge. The time of the day will probably depend upon how much time you’ll want to spend. Getting there is slightly difficult, so I’d suggest spending most of a day. Although you start at the same spot as Ring Arch, you will immediately take a right fork into a small wash. You will circle around and behind the west end of the Great Wall and […]

Upper Courthouse Wash is a good way to find some solitude, even on busy days at the park. Although there is limited parking at the Courthouse Bridge, that is where you’ll want to start your hike. Getting to Ring Arch is a little tricky since there is no marked trail. On the way to Ring Arch you will want to stop and smell the roses, not that the foliage smells anything like roses, but you get the drift. Lonesome Day […]

Not far from Herdina Park on the southeast end of Klondike Ridge, the first of the tall fins form. The whole area is tilted toward the southwest at a 15 or 20-degree angle. It’s a great place to see where tectonics have been at work. Standing between two fins, shortly after sunrise, I took Breaking Day (above) on a hike where I was a little too rambunctious. I injured my knee, and hobbled around for weeks afterward. Caution to those […]

If you visit Klondike Bluffs or Herdina Park, or perhaps drive the four wheel drive road from Klondike Bluffs south, you’ll notice a ridge of rocks that line the western boarder of Arches. I call this ridge Klondike Ridge since I’m unable to find a map that gives the area any specific label. As splendid an area as it is, I’ve always wondered why it hasn’t been annexed by the park. I’ve climbed in this area as often as I’ve […]

Herdina Park is one of those places I love to explore. It can be exhausting, and although you can see most of it in a day, it is one of those places you can revisit again and again and always find something new and exciting. I would suggest to anyone that ventures there to take a lunch and plenty of water, and if you can start at sunrise and leave after sunset. There are plenty of places to stretch out […]

I find in many of my trips to the windows area, that plans take me to North and South window first, then Turret Arch, and back to the Garden of Eden for sunset. In all of my visits, I think I have only lingered at the windows twice at sunset, and of course Turret Arch is best shot at sunrise, which I have never done. Turret Arch sets alone, which makes it an oddity since the vast majority of the […]

Just down the road from Balanced Rock you turn into the windows area. My favorite place in the park for sunset shots is the Garden of Eden. It will be your first stop on the way to North and South Window. I’ve never been to the Garden of Eden at sunrise because I figure it would all be in shadows, but perhaps some day I’ll check it out. The first shot (above) is from a distance to give a perspective […]

If Delicate Arch is the number one attraction in Utah, Balanced Rock isn’t far behind. Midway into Arches, the icon is only yards away from the highway. I’ve never found it all that big of an attraction, and because of its proportions, difficult to photograph. I’ve had fun in Photoshop making it topple, I’ve taken reflections shots every place I could find a puddle, I’ve been there at sunrise and sunset, and yet I’m never pleased with the results. The […]

Not far into Arches you’ll find Courthouse Towers. More often than not they are photographed as a grouping. There are really a limited number of pull offs, and that is typically where the vast majority of images are taken. To find the unusual perspective means you will have to hike. Most visitors are so afraid of stepping on the cryptobiotic soil that they avoid going anywhere. The truth is that the soil can easily be avoided by walking in washes […]

My wife and I have been visiting Moab and Arches National Park for more years than I care to mention. We’ve visited often enough that it feels like coming home every time we go there. We’ve been in Arches National Park so many times that we typically avoid the beaten path. In October of 2010 we guided a field trip with the Loveland Photographic Society, and since many of the members who attended had never been there, we revisited some […]

If you look at macro shots you’ve probably seen those amazing drops of water with spherical little images floating inside them. Optics are wonderful. Getting such images directly from your camera is a challenge. An equal challenge is catching a reflection in an eye, especially of an animal that refuses to pose. Recently I visited the Lazy J bar S Ranch, a facility that boards horses and trains both hoses and riders. It’s a fun place to visit and is […]

M45: A blue cloud and stars; sometimes the simple can be amazing. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the halo effect that dominates the brightest stars in the nebula. Without, the image would be little more than a puff of color. Star fields and nebula have been the subject of other articles, so I’ll address the halos, which is the main feature of this image. I’m sure there are numerous ways to create facsimiles, and I have tried several. In […]

Unlike the Crab Nebula, the rendition of the Sombrero Galaxy (above) was produced without utilizing any pattern from the images I downloaded from the Internet. The cropped image was my model since it had more detail and color to work with (below). The full image (far below) is no doubt more like the natural exposure directly from a telescope, and in fact looks very much like the one from the Hubble site. The process I used to create this image […]

The Crab Nebula (Hubble image above) is a close neighbor compared to most of the objects Hubble photographs, and is also a recent event, remnants of a supernova observed and recorded in China and Japan about 1000 years ago. Small Earth bound telescopes are capable of obtaining fair shots of this phenomenon. Not owning a telescope myself, I have never photographed anything other than the moon in the night sky, so once again I turn to Photoshop to create my […]

So, here is more as promised. This is butterfly nebula as taken by the Hubble Telescope (above), and my rendition (below), which was not meant to be a duplicate in any way. Part of the fun is to try and make the spectacular even more spectacular. The outcome is debatable, although I’m somewhat partial to the more translucent effect I obtained. The process as explained in the previous nebula is similar except that I used an image I had taken […]

Space doesn’t always look exactly like the images taken by telescopes. Astronomers know that enhancing their images is just as important for their profession as it is for any other. Few images come straight from the camera and go undoctored. However, it is hard not to be amazed by what exists in the Cosmos, doctored or undoctored. Because few people have access to the images produced by Hubble, and because those images are of unmatched quality, if you want to […]

3d effects are always fun with Photoshop. Some images are already so sharp you feel like you can jump right in, but the illusion of an image extending beyond the frame adds that third dimension even if the background is blurry. With this particular dragonfly, I had already spent a painstaking few hours separating the wings and cleaning up the translucency, which was dappled from a multicolored background. This was not a task I’d wish on anyone, but it’s a […]

Reflections are tricky. It’s easy enough to fool someone by adding a reflection, but if you’re serious about doing it right, you have to study real reflections. The elevation and angle of any shot determines the reflection you would see. Recently while in Moab for a photo shoot, we were fortunate enough to have some rain that filled numerous puddles in the rocks. The funny thing is that you can walk past the puddles and see nothing but blue, which […]

In October 2010 we led a group to Moab. One of our workshops started at Gold Bar campground where we took sunrise reflections of the cliffs from the bank of the Colorado River. While we were there a group with motorized paragliders took off from the parking lot and flew up and down the canyon. It was a real added bonus for our photographers. From there we hiked to Corona Arch, and if you’re into Moab lore you might have […]

There are places in the world where rail lines pass through exotic places. I’m always interested to see how often such locations as the Glenfinnan Viaduct  or the Arten Gill Viaduct show up in films. Since I’m not planning any trips to Scotland or England in the near future, I have to manufacture my own exotic rail lines. The UP engine was shot at the Cheyenne rail yard during a fieldtrip with the Loveland Photographic Society. The landscape is west […]

If you missed part 1 and 2, please go to older posts. The image is now taking shape. The next additions are the roads or bridges leading up to the castle on the right and left. Rather than create them from scratch, I borrowed one of the walls I had just built, then stretched and flattened it to fit the space. I used a round eraser to create the scalloped effect on the under side, and the smudge tool set […]

If you missed part one, go to older post. Since this is a twilight shot and a representation of the Disney Logo, I added stars, which isn’t totally realistic, but this is art and adds a nice effect. I borrowed my star field from my space art. I will have details on how I make a star field in a future post, I promise. Next I added my horizon. Once again I went to my library, and in sunset shots […]

Occasionally the Loveland Photographic Society asks members with certain skills to put on a program. For February, the challenge was to take an image submitted by another member, and alter it with your artistic interpretation in Photoshop. You of course have no idea what image you will get. For this event I had 14 images to choose from. One was a highly detailed and beautiful daytime shot of the Disney Castle at their amusement park. As soon as I saw […]

Challenge topics help produce interesting results. If you’re serious about your craft as a photographer, competition is a good way to seek to produce images that you might never otherwise create. Sometimes these images can be some of your most interesting work. Ominous Wind was just such an image. How do you photograph wind? We all know wind itself is invisible, while the effects of wind are often quite recognizable. The elements of Ominous Wind needed more than just an […]

St. Malo Chapel is a popular landmark to photograph that is just south of Estes Park, and is near Long’s Peak and Rocky Mountain National Park, all big attractions for tourists. Even though I live within 50 miles, I rarely drive past, especially early in the morning. This fall we had a field trip for the Loveland Photographic Society, www.lps.cc, that took me past the chapel just at sunrise. Although the chapel and reflection were spectacular, there was nothing exciting […]

The Loveland Photographic Society has a monthly challenge topic for competition, February’s being Extreme Depth of Field. For most participants, the challenge will be taking multiple exposures at different focal points and blending them together in some program such as helicon focus. While fun, I’m always looking into the Photoshop bag of tricks to make something more unusual. Layers allows you that option. Although some will protest saying the challenge is to use your camera, I know that the interpretation […]

I recently made a book trailer for my first novel, Silent Wave. I needed images representative of the storyline, which meant that most were at least partially from my imagination. When certain elements don’t exist, how do you go about creating them? In my photography I typically shoot with the idea that I will composite backgrounds, mid-grounds, and foregrounds together, so I’m used to building images in Photoshop. Some are more of a challenge than others. AMT (Advanced Metal Technologies, […]