As we were driving into the Bear/ Sprague Lake area on Sunday, we drove alongside Mill Creek and I noticed that it had a significantly-sized channel with a lot of boulders in it. I filed it away in the back of my mind, thinking it warranted more inspection. I think Megan noticed it too.

After we wrapped up with all the shooting at Bear Lake and Sprague Lake, we started to head out of the park. It had rained pretty good, and the roads were pretty wet. As we crossed the bridge over Mill Creek, Megan and I agreed that we should at least check the site out. I was a bit concerned because of how much it had rained. The rocks looked pretty slick. We walked all the way from where we parked down to the bridge (where I took a photo of the underside of the bridge because of George Barr and his book. I still had reservations because of the wetness of the rock, but Megan wanted to do it and was confident she could if she went barefoot.

Throwing caution to the wind, we went out into the boulder field/ creek. I wouldn’t want to try this in May/ June when the runoff is raging through there, but at this time of the year the creek was pretty tame. I found what I thought was a good rock for Megan to pose on. I got a good number of shots of her on that rock. Some laughing, some serious, but all good I think. I decided to “think outside the box” a little and moved her off to one side of the frame. That resulted in the picture above. When she saw it in camera later, she was really excited. Didn’t catch what she thought of it full size on the screen. Guess I’ll have to dig into her myspace page - I am sure it is there if she liked it.

For me though, this image could be used to convey so many thoughts. I could easily see it being some type of album cover (or something along these lines at least), or an advertisement, or just an interpretive piece for the viewer to decide what it means. For some reason this image is very powerful to me. Maybe I am reading more into it since I took the image. Definitely possible. Doesn’t matter though, I really like it.

Nature is far more perfect…, originally uploaded by everyday*beautiful (Lacy).

As with the person who took this pic, I am ready for the fall. The colors are more interesting, and the weather less predictable. It all adds up to a good photo op!

In reviewing George Barr’s “Take Your Photography to the Next Level”, I noticed two things. 1. George Barr stitches a lot of images together (a topic for another day) and 2. Mr. Barr uses Helicon Focus quite a bit.

Helicon Focus is designed (per their website) for:

• micro photography (camera + optical microscope)
• macro photography (camera + macro lenses )
• landscape photography (infinite depth of field)

I have only done a couple of tests with it so far (it rained here in Colorado most of the weekend), but I think a definitive one is illustrated below. I want to thank George Barr for bringing this tool to me eyes, and to Dan Kozub (in the Ukraine) for writing it. I am going to use it a lot when I do flower macros, etc.

My first attempt at doing a test didn’t come out so well (I didn’t even save the result). The primary reason? I was trying to do it handheld. You definitely want to use a tripod for this.

Since it was raining all weekend, I just set up my small tripod on the kitchen table and took some pics looking into my wife’s office. For this test, I snapped a total of five pictures, all in manual focus mode. Here is the first:
Notice that the computer monitor and other items are well out of focus in the background. Here is the relevant EXIF data:
Camera: Olympus E-510
Exposure: 0.2 sec (1/5)
Aperture: f/5.3
Focal Length: 34 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0/10 EV

Following this shot, I rotated the focus ring a little ways and snapped another. I did this 2 more times before taking this final shot (for a total of 5).
Notice that things in the background are in much better focus now. Here is the relevant EXIF data:
Camera: Olympus E-510
Exposure: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture: f/5.3
Focal Length: 34 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0/10 EV

Obviously you can guarantee best results by being in full Manual mode and making sure the aperture and exposure are the same for each picture. Since this was a crude, last minute test, I didn’t go that far.

Here is the resulting image from a combination of the 5, using the default settings in Helicon Focus.

The difference is pretty obvious, and pretty striking as well. All told, it took about 20 minutes for the software to process the 5 Olympus RAW images (~8MB each) into the resulting image above. I can’t wait to get out in the field and try this on some flowers. Just make sure your objects are stationary. As you can tell from the Windows logo on the computer screen, EVERYTHING makes it into the final image.

For more information, or to purchase this software, go to http://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconfocus.html - you won’t be sorry you did.

Be aware that there is not much in the way of tutorial information. You really need to experiment with the program or look in the forums to get an idea of what you are doing. I figured out that I needed to shoot several images, and then simply loaded them in and let it do it’s thing. Very cool tool!

Take Your Photography to the Next Level: From Inspiration to Image, by George Barr, is a collection of the most helpful postings from his blog over the past few years. I rank this book right up there with the works of Bryan Peterson in terms of it’s importance to photographers in general. In fact, I would declare this a must read.

Mr. Barr has taken the liberty (well advised in my mind) of editing his prior posts so that they are more current or relevant for this book. I had never heard of him before, but the author is very impressive in terms of how he is able to “see” a great photo in what seem like ordinary or common objects. I do believe that, in the course of my learning to take better pictures, this is the hardest thing to do.

One of the more impressive things about this book is how the editor, author, and Rocky Nook were able to take the blog postings and meld them into a cohesive book. It follows a fairly structured order, and includes excellent photographic examples along the way. I also particularly like how the author intentionally stayed away from mentioning specific settings and (most of the time) gear used to make certain images. In a few sections of the book, it is pointed out clearly that it is the person taking the photos that is more important than the gear being used, and I agree completely (he does cover the gear he uses at the back of the book).

One other very useful sections is how to deal with rejection and criticism and the whole mindset of taking pictures. I know a few people that could apply the principles of that section (did I mention Barr is a doctor) in their photography or other aspects of their life. Very good stuff, and just another example of how Barr is able to relate to the casual and serious photographer alike.

I could go on and on about this book, but you really should get a copy for yourself. It is outstanding!

Sometimes you take a picture and you know in your mind that it could have been different or better if you had taken it on a different day or at a different time. Lighting can play a huge role in what your picture conveys. And this is where “Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques” comes into play.
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Selective coloring…you know the process of taking a B&W image and only showing something in a vibrant color in the photo. Yeah, looks really cool but how the heck do you do it?

Get ready because it’s actually very easy and one of the first photo editing (processing) tips that was passed on to me.

First find a photo that lends itself to a bit of selective coloring. Look for photos that have vibrant spot colors that do not mesh with any of the background colors. I am going to use this photo of a rose courtesy FreeFoto.com for our tutorial.

Now, open your image in PhotoShop (I am using CS3, but most of this should be backward compatible to earlier versions).

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My background in photography is that of a complete layperson. I started out in middle school with the Kodak equivalent of a Polaroid. Eventually I graduated to a 35mm point and shoot. Following that was an Olympus D-490Zoom. All cameras that didn’t allow for a lot of tinkering with settings. Since that was all I knew, I still took pictures that way when I moved on to the more capable Canon Powershot G5. It has full control over aperture, f-stop, etc. But I was very intimidated by trying those kinds of things out. Over the years I had managed to get a few pictures that I was really proud of, and even some that garnered compliments from total strangers.

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i25lights, originally uploaded by ~Tiffany Nicole Photography~.

Spending time out at night has really helped in my understanding of exposure, aperture and shutter speeds.

This photo taken of I-25 in Downtown Denver was just a fun experiement to see what I could do with different settings.

Experiment with your camera and all its settings and see what crazy photos you can come up with. I now LOVE shooting at night and try to find a different spot to shoot from each week.

View fit for a king, originally uploaded by Chester Bullock.

There are times when you may not want to do post-processing on your image. If it is a shot you want to frame, the natural tendency is to optimize everything so the print comes out gloriously.

This picture is an example of when you wouldn’t want to adjust things very much, if at all. It was taken on a very cold winter day in Bavaria. Don’t recall exactly, but I would estimate the temperature was probably around 20°F. Cameras are great at capturing the blue hue when it is so cold. But Photoshop doesn’t like it. If you have a batch routine where color correction is set to auto, you lose all the blue in this picture - along with all sense of temperature that the image conveys.

Bottom line - each picture is different, and your post processing routine for each one should be too. Not always easy (or ‘time saving’) to do, but the results will be worth it.

About the photo:
View from the throne room of Schloss Neuschwanstein near Fussen, in Bavaria, Germany. No retouching done at all (though some suggest a crop would help it). Lucky to be in the right place at the right time, just wish I’d had more than a 3MP camera with me at the time.

burnt_clouds_2, originally uploaded by ~Tiffany Nicole Photography~.

I captured this image the other day as I was getting out of the car to go in the house. Grabbed the camera from my bag and popped off a few quick shots. Within a 3 minute time span it went from this amazing colorful shot to dark drab clouds that looked swollen with rain.

Weather changes quick, always be ready for that perfect moment in time.