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Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky

July 26, 2009 in Photo | No comments

Here’s a fun shot I took while on my belly in the gras:

Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky.

Yellow Flowers in Front of a Blue Sky

I had to resist the temptation to increase the saturation of the blue sky to get a more in-your-face look, which would have meshed well with the super-saturated color of the flower. I prefer this rendition because it conveys the light, sunny feel that goes with that particular sky – if you have ever been to Bavaria in that kind of weather, you will know what a “Bavarian Sky” is and what I am talking about.

L’anémone primeur est arrivé!

July 26, 2009 in Photo | No comments

The anemones have just begun to bloom. I love these flowers and relish the opportunity to take pictures of them. Here is this year’s first (good) anemone picture:

A pink anemone flower photographed against the light.

Pink Anemone Flower

I like anemones for their delicate beauty which is so visible when you look at the colored veins and spots against the light. Can you see the tiny hairs that line the petals? And the shadows the flower throws on itself in the sunlight?

Have I mentioned that I really love these flowers? No, I do not think you could have guessed. 🙂

Green Lizard

June 30, 2009 in Photo | No comments

The green streak on the brown bark of the tree caught my attention. It turned out to be a wonderfully fluorescent green lizard sitting upside-down on the trunk of the tree:

A bright green lizard on a tree.

Green Lizard

I am not quite sure what the lizard was looking at. Perhaps the person behind the camera was every bit intriguing as the lizard in front of the camera?

Fern Spiral

June 30, 2009 in Photo | No comments

A fern leaf unrolls itself from a tightly wound spiral towards the light as it grows.

A fresh fern leaf spirals up towards the light.

Fern Spiral

Ferns as a group are quite old – the fossil records date back to the early Carboniferous period, so roughly 360 million years ago, have been found. Isn’t it amazing that organisms are so well adapted that the species survives almost 400 million years and shows no sign of weakness?

Even though this long history is certainly not unique to ferns, I always get the feeling that a dinosaur might peek through the leaves at me when I come across a fern … 😉

HDR using Photoshop vs. Photomatix

May 4, 2009 in Photo, Photography, Software, Technique | No comments

Processing multiple exposures into a single HDR (high dynamic range) image turns out to be more of a subjective process than I initially thought.

Have a look at the following image, which was processed using Photoshop CS4 and the “Merge to HDR” feature:

Image processed from 3 exposures by Photoshop CS4 "Merge to HDR".

Image processed from 3 exposures by Photoshop CS4 "Merge to HDR".

Not bad, really, at first glance. But notice at the right edge, about halfway down the image, how the arch coming in from the wall is completely blown out?

Now look at the same source exposures converted by Photomatix:

3 Exposures processed by Photomatix Pro.

Image processed from 3 Exposures by Photomatix Pro.

The highlights are not blown out, the tonality of the image is smoother, the reddish cast is reduced. All in all, the image is much closer to the intended look than what Photoshop allows.

Given that Photomatix allows me a lot more control to tweak the result than Photoshop, I think the money is well spent on Photomatix …

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