Tag Archives: software

*HDR 101, Part 1 – Capturing Dynamic Range

by in HDR 101, Photography tutorials, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

the scale of luminance values as far as the eye can see…

Politics, Religion, Economics, HDR.  There seems to be little in the photographic world that starts such heated discussions as the concept of HDR photography and processing.  Truth of the matter is, it is a very popular technique and can be done with a multitude of results, some more visually shocking than others, but I believe HDR gets a bad rap too often.  Let me start off by saying, I am not an HDR expert.  I do not feel that my techniques are an end all by any means, but I have figured out some very helpful techniques that I feel can benefit those looking to get into, or better understand capturing and processing HDR imagery.  For me, capturing the dynamic range of a scene is the primary concern while the way these bracketed images are processed is an entirely personal decision.  Too often, I see people tonemapping single images, or running them through an HDR-like software to give it that grungy, gritty look and calling it “HDR.”  While many of those images have a very cool look to them in their own right, it still doesn’t quite qualify as a high dynamic range photo by definition in many cases.  C’mon in and we can discuss ways to capture the whole dynamic range of any particular scene along with some tips and tricks.

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*Kubota Lensbaby Action Pak!

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

1 photo, 15 actions for 15 different looks. (click on all pics for larger view)

With all the Lensbaby fun of late, I went in search of ways to enhance the Lensbaby experience and stumbled across the Kubota Lensbaby Action Pak!  For those not familiar with Kubota actions, they’re purchasable groups of photoshop actions (very popular with studio, event and wedding shooters) which provide you with quick, easy and repeatable adjustments with the click of a button.  Based in Bend, Oregon, they’re just down the way from me so I decided to get in touch with them and they were very gracious to let me play around with their Lensbaby Action Pak which includes 15 actions tuned for image files taken with various Lensbaby optics.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and while I never have a problem rambling on and on, I will let the image examples show off what these actions do.  Starting with the original image taken with a GF1 and the Lensbaby TT + Composer / double glass optic and on through each of the included 15 Kubota Filters:

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*30% off Alien Skin Software!!!!!!!!

by in General ramblings, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

(*while this is the older promotion, Alien Skin is currently offering a 30-40% off sale on all their software through April 17th, 2012 SEE HERE!)

I’m not the type to promote every discount or product out there (just the ones that I like), but having been fortunate enough to review a couple of the Alien Skin software products recently, I will say that A) they are a cool company with great folks representing them and B) they make a killer product.   That and I wanted to pass this along just in case anyone out there reading is interested.  I make no money from this and I’m honestly just passing this along because I like the folks involved with, and products offered from Alien Skin.

That’s all really.  If you’ve been interested in any of the Alien Skin software and haven’t pulled the trigger, they’re offering 30% off (and free updates/not upgrades mind you) until Tuesday March 15th.  If you’re interested in what I’ve had to say about them, you can read my personal experiences via the links below:

Alien Skin Exposure 3

Alien Skin Bokeh 2

I’ve not played around with the others yet, but I’m sure that any Alien Skin product would be worth while as long as it’s particular skill set appealed to you.  I would very strongly suggest at least trying out the free trials of both Exposure and Bokeh if you’ve not already to see if the discount rate is enough to push you.

You can download the trials or purchase any of the Alien Skin software directly from their website here: Alienskin.com

Have a great weekend!

Tyson

*Lo-Fi, you know you want to.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

I received an email the other day from a contact I’d made while doing the review posts for Alien Skin letting me know they had a new desktop app to process jpeg images in a fun and creative way.  The app is called Lo-Fi, and it is AWESOME!  Having just recently posted a couple of my tricks to age and vintage-i-fy digital images, I have been in a post production, digital file aging mood and this app is a quick and easy way to get a huge variety of looks.  Read on for links and images…

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*Alien Skin Bokeh 2

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Bokeh (/bō’kɛ/): In photographic terms, has grown to mean the subjective quality of the out of focus areas in a photograph, and how a particular lens renders out of focus points of light (adopted from the Japanese term boke 暈け, meaning fuzzy, disoriented, et al).  Pronounced BO (as the bo in bone) and KE (as the ke in ken) if we are taking it directly from the Japanese word, while the “h” was added to help non Japanese speaking photographers pronounce this adopted term (see the wikipedia article for the history on the term and idea in photographic application).  While the definition, pronunciation and it’s subjective nuances are often debated as to it’s application in the photographic realm, it hasn’t stopped Alien Skin from creating a plugin that beautifully applies an out of focus blur to selected areas of an otherwise focused image.  With their second release, Bokeh 2 has added new bells and whistles as well as a more refined control of both radial and planar regions within an image and it’s area of focus.  Read on for examples and why I think this is a wonderful deal of a plugin.

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*Presets! Less talk, more rock! Or, one easy way to streamline your workflow.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Presets, a key to streamlining your workflow. (*using a New York Times Mag Aperture3 preset by Zurli) - image ©tyson robichaud photography2010

Alright alright now.  No matter what your stance is on post processing, love it, hate it, meh, one thing that is hard to deny is that for the average photographer, digital photography requires a bit more time than shooting film on an image by image basis.  Yes, our feedback with digital is instantaneous, yes we are able to immediately adjust on the fly but one thing that has crept into the equation is the amount of time needed after shooting to upload, catalog, tag, process and archive all of your images (not to mention, many of us tend to take quite a few more images per outing now that we get more than 24 exposures a round).  One helpful tool is the use of presets, or actions.  These are a series of repeatable adjustments and instructions applied to your digital file so that you don’t have to manually adjust each and every one individually.  Read on for links, examples and tons of freebies for APERTURE, LIGHTROOM and PHOTOSHOP presets and actions…

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*Exposure 3, third time’s a charm!

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Alien Skin's Exposure 3 makes your digital files instantly feel film like. - ©tyson robichaud photography 2010

I have been curious about the Alien Skin Exposure software plugin for Photoshop for a long time.  With the third iteration, Exposure3  has taken their film simulation software even further.  Read on for examples and reviews…

*Authors note: Link to Alien Skin’s Newsletter showing this article here!

To those who’ve come from the newsletter, welcome!!!

 

(March 2012) Now that Exposure 4 has been released, you can read my updated review HERE!

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*Selective Color use in Black and White Photography

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

One fun, and very easy technique in Photoshop is to use a small point (or points) of color in a black and white image to draw focus to a particular area or provide a particular mood.  It is easy and can provide a bit of intrigue to an image. This is my basic way of achieving this using an image in Photoshop.

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*Free Photoshop Contrast Pop Action!

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

My lovely friend Kira plays the good sport.

Here is a brief tutorial on how to add a contrasty “look” to just about any picture.  There are sites out there to purchase many of these types of actions, and some of them are well worth the price, but I’ve found that through my years, many other photographers have offered up free advice as I was learning to scrape the surface of Photoshop, which enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of my post processing.  So, in this tradition, I shall try to pay back a bit of that help by offering up this little trick.  I know that many photographers would rather spend their free time taking pictures, not in front of a computer processing them.  I myself find enjoyment on both sides of this coin, but I sure don’t mind being able to quickly automate some of my more “used” techniques.  This is one of them…

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*A thank you to many, or, why I think the internet is cool.

by in General ramblings and tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I do feel that you are neat. If you are reading this, it is meant for you.

First, thank you.  To those of you who’ve been visiting, reading and commenting and those who have been linking me to their blogs, articles, allowing me to guest blog for you, re-posting my blog posts, and generally helping each other out, thank you.  If you are here, reading this, I mean you.

The internet is an amazing tool for information gathering.  Sometimes that information can be challenged and in some cases, just downright wrong, but the fact that it is a tool that enables all of us to provide the dialogue, has gone a long way in helping me in a variety of ways.  I wanted to take the opportunity to thank a few of the folks who’ve helped my blog gain a little exposure and hope to be able to turn a few of my new friends onto their sites as well.  Many of the links below may be well known to many of us, others perhaps not, but regardless, I find a lot of value in these sites and hope that others may as well if you don’t already…

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