Of the books I own on HDR, I believe these are the two very best I own. Trey is a master at inspiration. Inspiring you to create your own art. RC is a master instructor. When you bring these two books together, you get the absolute best HDR experience.

As for me, I have Adobe CS 5, Photomatix (the original software I used), and now HDR Efex Pro. Along with these three programs, I also have Topaz Adjust which brings a pseudo-HDR effect to 1 exposure shots, or creates a deeper, more surrealistic view to photos already processed in HDR.

Here is one of my more recent HDR shots, which was also processed with Topaz Adjust:

Post processing has been occurring since the dawn of photography. Dodging and burning has been part of dark room photography as far back as darkrooms go. Ansel Adams is widely considered the father of modern photography, and he spent many, many hours in the dark room taking his digital negative and turning it into the words of art that we are familiar with. With digital, the tools of prost-processing have changed, but the fact that it needs done has not.

This tutorial is aimed at the armature photographer. The one that doesn’t have a lot of time, nor money to allocate to the hobby of photography. I am using the free tool, Picasa for this tutorial.

• First, I add in some Fill light (First slider). This brightens up the picture. The light parts (highghts) are fine. It is the details that I am attempting to bring out, which means I use the fill light slider.
• Next, I Add some darkness to bring ou the shadows and add depth. I tend to use the darkness or black slider than most others. This adds the extra punch to the photos.
• Finally, I bumped the Color Temperature up just a bit. The color is the color cast given to a scene. Every source of light has a color. Modern cameras compensate for this, to an extent. Usually, I add JUST a touch of extra yellow in, to give photos a slightly warm glow. You will tend to get this same glow, if you take your photographs the hour before sunset or the hour after sunrise. This is known as the Golden Hour in photography.

Next, I looked at the very top of the capitol, and straightened that spire. Because of my lens, there is a little distortion. I really need to use something like Photoshop to remove this major distortion (Look at the far left of the photograph, where the back of the capitol leans away from the edge of the photo, to see exactly what I am talking about. To straighten the photo, you click on the straighten tool, under the Basic Fixes tab, then just use the slider at the bottom of the image to adjust the image how you want it. I want to take this opportunity to point out that every picture does NOT have to be perfectly straight. Artistic license means you can tweak your perspective to make an image more interesting. That is a photo I did at Merrill Park a few years ago on Memorial day.

The next step I took, was to crop the photo. On the far left, there was a piece of fence poking its way into my photo, and too much space above the capitol that just left your eye to wander. I wanted the building to be THE Subject of the photo. I didn’t have to crop out too much, just a little to bring keep the eye contained. I could have left the top un cropped, but I do like the winder format for this photo, as well.

That is it for the photo. I am happy with it at that point. BUT, I took it to one further step. I went over to the “Effects tab”, and added a graduated tint to the photo. This darkened the top part bringing the eye more to the lower, bright part of the photo, again. The first thing I did, was moved the “feather” slider all the way to the left. I then moved the mouse around on the screen to give me this angled tint. Once I hate the line that I wanted the break to occur at, I then moved the feathering up, so it would look correct, and not have that harsh line.

There you have it. The photos has been tweaked by adding some punch, adding a touch of straightening, and cropping it a bit to draw the eye to the building. Finally, I played a bit with the Effects” and added a graduated filter. The only way to understand the filters, is to try them. Picasa makes it VERY easy to edit, and then undo those edits. Google also allows you to use Picasa Web to easily upload your photos from inside of Picasa (Right-click on the photo, and then choose quick upload, to upload into your Picasa album). Once you are done with your perfect photograph, you will have to “export” it. On the bottom of the screen is a folder that says export. Click on that, and then choose where you want to put the file, what size you want to resized to (It resizes the long side, figure 1024, 1280, and 1600 for most of your photos, you can also put in a custom number). After you are done there, click Export, and your final, jpeg image will be ready to enjoy, and show off.

At some point, you will find Picasa’s simple controls too restraining. Paint.net is free, and powerful. I would recommend, though, moving up to Adobe Elements. It is a relatively inexpensive software, and gives you access to much more advanced filters and actions that are used in Adobe Photoshop. Once you start getting a lot of photos, I would also recommend Photoshop Lightroom. This is the first step in my personal photographic workflow, and for a great many of my photos, my only step. Lightroom + Photoshop Elements were my two main tools for a VERY long time, and they are both relatively inexpensive.

Lets start out with Understanding Exposure. If I could recommend JUST ONE BOOK, it is this one. It is the one I tell people to look at, buy, and understand. It explains the exposure triangle, gives you some basic assignments meant to make it stick, and all in all is a GREATLY way to learn to see creatively.

So, the second book (or set of books in this instance) would be Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books. They come as a set. These books tell you more of WHAT to do, and a lot less of WHY you do it. It makes it easier for a new photographer. The reason that I suggest Understanding Exposure first, though, is so you know how to apply what you learn in these books better. And even extrapolate what you learn into new areas.

The third, and last book I will talk about is Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography. This is a terrific book about how to shoot and process HDR. I do realize that there have been newer books released by Rick Sammon and Trey Ratcliff (my personal HDR inspiration), but I have not been able to pick them up. I don’t want to blindly recommend a book, and The Complete guide is a great resource. This is a much more specialized resource, but I get a lot of questions about it.

So, there you have it. Just 3 simple books. Well, technically Kelby’s are 3 in 1 set… but it is just 3 purchases. I really can’t recommend these books enough. You will NOT go wrong with them. Especially the first two.

The second part of this, will be websites. Well, websites and blogs I follow. I have created a photography bundle of my blog and website subscriptions. While it is not entirely comprehensive, I really like these people and between what they talk about and links to other resources you will learn a lot.

So, first the set up:

There were two Foam Boards. The black was used as a background and the white was used to help reflect the light a bit. The white also worked as a wind-break at the time.

I used the fill-in reflector (Silver) to add a bit more natural light on the flower.

To get right up-close to flower, I used this computer wrist rest. This wrist rest has little micro-beads that allow you to adjust the camera location. I have found it makes a GREAT on-the-ground rest for my camera, especially for doing macro shots.

To capture the image itself, I used a 50 mm Canon macro lens with an el-cheapo extension tube set.

That site, Deal Extreme, has a lot of amazing deals on REALLY cheap camera items. Remember, you get what you pay for… but, these deals are hard to beat. Also, I think with my original order, it took about 2 months or so for all of the parts to come in… but the prices really are great.

I have included links to where I bought all of the items, too. I hope this helps you.

Rainbow over Boise in HDR:

Rainbow over Boise in Panorama:

A year ago, I made my first blog post about my new camera. Now, I have sold a print, done wedding portraits, family portraits, and even covered several events for my day job, as a photographer. On top of that, I have gone in with my girlfriend to create our own studio for portraits and fine art sales. This has gone from a new hobby, to the beginnings of a source of income. It has gone from a new hobby, to a passion. It has gone from a new hobby I do, to a hobby I am.

It has been an exciting excursion. I have increased my skills in photography greatly. I have learned about Geotagging, High Dynamic Range, Macro, and infrared photography. I will admit, IR photography is still very new to me. I have a cheap IR filter, and earlier this year, picked up two more, higher quality IR filters, that block different wavelengths of the visual spectrum. Idaho Camera, and their seminars have taught me a lot about Photoshop Elements, my camera, and different aspects of photography.

I have discovered that I can take good pictures, in decent conditions, but I still have a long way to go. I understand the rule of thirds and have a feeling when to break the rule… but it doesn’t always work. I am fortunate to have come so far, in such a short period of time, but it really opens my eyes as to how much further I still have to grow as a photographer. I have loved to be able to share my passion with my girlfriend. It is funny to see our different styles. I will spend ten minutes setting up my tripod, stabilizing my camera, putting on filters, and then taking the pictures. Tanya will walk down the trail, and snap shots as she goes, taking 30 seconds to get the same shot it takes me 10 minutes to take. She also introduced me to the magic of the “Nifty fifty” 50mm, FAST lens. This thing makes MAGIC.

So, it has been a year. I bought this camera a year ago. I have learned a lot, smiled a lot, and met a lot of great people. Even gone on a photowalk with some of them.

After all of this, I really can’t wait to see what this next year brings!

So, yes, this was VERY good. Think of a bacon covered meatloaf, that is made with pork, instead of other meats. What it boils down to, that is what this is. So, a few thoughts. First, don’t use a salt-based rub. I didn’t plan on it, but unfortunately, when I was putting this together, I forgot about the rub, so I grabbed some spices out of the cabinet, and one of the spice mixtures I used was salty. In the future, I will not use a rub mix with salt in it.

So, one item I did differently, was put a stripe of applesauce down one strip, to try it. I thought that the applesauce would be good. Unfortunately, after I pulled it out… I forgot to try to find that slice… and never got to try it. And this went FAST. A friend made some Pillsbury rolls to put this on. They were the right size, and WOW, they made it complete.

I had it on the grill for about 3 hours. I used a gas grill. All three burners were turned up, to sear one side. I then cranked the one on one side down to nothing. I pulled the “flavorizor bar” off one, and put chunks of hickory on it, to add smoke. The grill’s heat sensor was running about 280 the whole time. In the middle, I rolled it over, Since the heat was coming from one end, I turned it twice, to make sure both sides were well cooked. I had thought about adding cheese or something, but couldn’t figure out, off hand, how to add it.

3 lbs flank or skirt steak, trimmed of excess fat – Marinated in Mojo marinade.
1 lb fries
3 Roma Tomatoes, chopped
1 bunch green onions
1 package Guacamole
1 container sour cream
1 package shredded mexican cheese

Mojo:
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 large handful fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, juiced
1 orange, juiced
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil

Make the Mojo marinade 5-8 hours ahead, and marinate the steak in it. Toss all ingredients in a food processor, and puree.

First, Marinade the Flank steak for at least 5 hours, though, I would suggest closer to 8.

Crank your grill up to 400-500. Toss the steaks on, and cook until well done.

Prep all of the foods, and cook the fries.

That is about all there is. Once everything is done, put it together

Some additional items to toss on the Carne Asada Fries, include Chili, or Fresh, sauteed mushrooms.

Here, are the shots of the week, for Project 365.

The sun is shining! Snow, Sun, and fence posts. I used HDR to capture the shot, and Topaz Adjust to filter it.

Shoes are for walking. This is another one processed in Topaz Adjust to pull out some fine detail.

Dreams of summer. It is COLD right now. While I am not a fan of baseball, I DO equate it with summer. The funniest comment I have received (so far) is also tagged on this. (And, it was done seriously…)

The Moon and Stars. This is actually venus, not a star. I really like the background, but wish that the moon and Venus were exposed better.

The Moon and Venus up close. In this picture, The Moon and Venus are close together, and star together. I like the exposure on this one, on the two, but the BLACK background is kind of… blah.

Dragonborn Barbarian – This is a miniature painted by my buddy Dave. He is a great painter. I played with White and Black backgrounds.

Fire hydrant in the snow – So, Tanya pointed this fire hydrant out, at the McCall Winter Carnival. I thought it was VERY funny, and had to get a picture. It is processed in Topaz Adjust, and I increased the saturation on the yellow, to get it to really pop out.