Sherborne Cottage

Every now and then I do something a little different on this blog, and I'm sure today's picture qualifies as that. It is always my objective to add a little artistic flair to my pictures, and this is normally achieved using HDR techniques, which I am very fond of. Today I have gone for a watercolour presentation of an English cottage, which I created in Topaz Simplify 4. There was also a lot of additional work done in Photoshop to 'fix' issues created in Simplify.

I have had the original photo on my hard drive for a little while now, but was inspired to create a watercolour version of this photo after seeing various paintings of summer cottage scenes. Though it was actually February when I captured this picture, it was taken on a bright sunny morning, so was able to give it that summer look (albeit the bare tree on the right).

Frequency Separation

This week I mentioned how a technique called 'Frequency Separation' helped me fix my desert picture 'Tracks of the Desert'. Now I would like to demonstrate why. If you look at the 2 photos below, you can see in the original RAW image (with slight processing before being exported to Photoshop) there is a lot of dirt/murkiness to the right of the picture. It is in other parts as well. Now I assume this was caused by the thick, sandy desert landscape, but nevertheless, I knew it would not look good in my final image.

My finished image is not perfect, and hasn't completely eradicated the dirt, but the Frequency Separation technique (normally used in portraiture photography) helped me eliminate the poorer parts to a large degree. If you watch the video tutorial below by Glyn Dewis, it explains all the elements of using this technique, and it was indeed this video that helped me solve my desert problem. I hope you find some use for it in the future!

Making Progress

The continuation of learning is an essential discipline within any art form, as it ensures not only that you continue to improve, but that you can adjust and stay relevant as well. I have been focusing a lot on improving my photography this year, and that means having delved myself into a fair few books and video tutorials. The photo above is a picture I have processed today, from a shoot I did in January last year (from the Newbury Marina). The version below is one I processed and posted this time last year. Please click on either picture and use the arrows to compare between the two.

If you are like me, I think you will feel that the first version is a clearly more satisfying picture than the 2nd. Without becoming too modest, I am very happy with the result today, mainly because it shows that I am improving, nearly 4 years after I produced my first HDR image (I'm even embarrassed by some of the elements in the 2nd picture). I don't mind admitting my influences, a lot of my improvement recently has come from video tutorials purchased from Glyn Dewis and Jimmy McIntyre, who have really shown me new techniques to use in Photoshop, and helped me realise where I have been going wrong previously. In Photomatix for instance, I never really had an idea what the purpose of the sliders were, and what the objective of Photomatix should be. I just knew which sliders I liked using. Now I clearly know what I'm trying to achieve in Photomatix (a balanced look without pushing any sliders too hard), and how to get there.

As I stated on Thursday, I was looking to do a blog recently on LR/Enthuse, and how to get a good dynamic range without using HDR. However, every time I feel like I'm moving away from HDR, I am always hooked back. I think it will always be this way. I am convinced now more than ever that understanding HDR techniques can truly make the best possible picture, despite the pro's who still argue against it. Whilst I will of course continue to explore many different techniques and ways to get quality pictures, my long journey with HDR has just taken a new turn.