April 9, 2010 at 7:39 pm (April, photoblog)
Tags: 365, GIMP, landscape, outdoor, photo, photography, sunrise
I got up this morning for a run (yes run…I know…I’m nuts!). I chose to run over a bloody great hill at that! Thankfully there was lots of great stuff to see, especially the sunrise. I lugged my camera in my hand the whole way around too! The clouds were great too, low, dark and fluffy.
This image has a 50% soft light layer on it. I can’t recall my UFRaw processes I’m afraid. Must get back to writing them down.
April 7, 2010 at 2:45 pm (April, photoblog)
Tags: 365, bokeh, GIMP, photography, project 365, ufraw
OK, as you could imagine, Easter was busy, so here’s my Easter effort wrapped up in one blog bundle.
DAY 93
My husband caught a big Mud Crab, so we set off to his parents house in search of someone that eats crab (we don’t). My eldest had a ball with a bucket of pebbles. Thus today’s inspiration….it was more interesting than the photo of the dead crab!!
Processed through UFRaw and GIMP with little adjustment.
DAY 94
Easter. The photo is of the left over wrappers. Chocolate devoured.
Added a soft light layer in GIMP.
DAY 95
Still eating chocolate. Thought one of the panels from a quilt made by one of my daughters grand-grandmas was perfect for today’s message! Soft light layer added in GIMP.
DAY 96
Planted – rather, transplanted, some golden cane palms from underneath our clothesline yesterday, here’s one of my efforts. Note: the palm seeds were thoughtfully placed there last year by my eldest daughter… Might also mention, the line is perched on a retaining wall, on one side is the back lawn, on the other, my husband’s vegie garden swarming with little caterpillars! It’s a case of ‘don’t mention the war’ there I’m afraid 
April 2, 2010 at 3:34 pm (April, Landscape & Outdoors, photoblog)
Tags: 365, GIMP, landscape, outdoor, photography, project 365, sunrise, texture, urban landscape
Final blog catch up. Finally, we have colour!!
DAY 91
These are cupcakes I made for my little girls 1st birthday party. Where did that year go!?!?! Texture used in this photo is Sandstone Scratch by pareeerica.
DAY 92
Beach sunrise. This photo is best viewed large! The sunrise was uninspiring, but it was nice to get out anyway.
March 28, 2010 at 2:41 pm (Black & White, March, photoblog)
Tags: black and white, child, GIMP, monochrome, photography, project 365, ufraw
The title may be odd, but the photo was taken at our local tennis club, which had its official opening on the weekend. The sun was low in the sky and made for some excellent photo opportunities. My eldest daughter stood still for the briefest second so I could take this shot.
In UFRaw I used the Daylight WB setting…that’s it. In GIMP I did a few more tricky things. I first desaturated with the Luminosity setting. Then using a combination of the clone tool and smudge tool, I wiped away all the cupcake crumbs she had all over her face. I then added a screen layer which had the effect of washing out the photo to make it nice and bright.
March 16, 2010 at 2:03 pm (Black & White, Landscape & Outdoors, March, night & long exposure, photoblog)
Tags: 365, black and white, GIMP, landscape, long exposure, monochrome, outdoor, photo, photography, project 365, ufraw, urban landscape
I got my fancy new wireless remote shutter release gizmo today! So i tried it out. My husband is away for a few days, so I couldn’t go anywhere more exotic than my own backyard to try my first really long exposure of the night sky.
Unfortunately, I had the ISO a little too high on this shot, but it still works, I think. It was a windy night, and in the shot you can see the trees going everywhere, my clothesline zipping around in circles, and the clouds moving along in the sky.
In UFRaw I had a tricky decisions for the WB, in the end I chose auto WB. In GIMP I added a second layer after auto-levels and desaturating the base layer. I made the top layer grain merge to help darken the sky and let the stars shine through. This also made what was a VERY bright wall become darker too.
I’m looking forward to trying a few more of these types of shots out. This shot was a 754 second exposure
March 16, 2010 at 1:43 pm (Black & White, March, photoblog)
Tags: 365, black and white, fruit, GIMP, monochrome, photo, photography, project 365, ufraw
Photo of today….lemons! Fruit and veg looks great in colour…so it was a tough challenge to get it to look good in black and white today. Or at least a passable ‘good’. My shot is grainy due to the high ISO and due to post-processing.
In UFRaw I played with the white balance and exposure settings to try and achieve a neutral tone to the photo. In other words, not too orange and not to blue. The lemons were shot under fluorescent lighting, which has the tendency to make things look green-ish. This of course depends on the colour of your lighting…but that’s a whole other post.
In GIMP I desaturated the base layer using the lightness setting. For info’s sake, you get three choices, lightness, luminosity and average. Each makes the image a slightly different tone…experiment! Get to desaturate via the menu choice Color>Desaturate…
Next I added a layer – I experimented with different layer settings to try and get the background a uniform black/dark colour. There were a few bits’n'pieces behind the lemons. Grain Extract was the choice I went with in the end. However, while this did a great job on making the background dark, it also clipped some detail from the foreground. So in Color>Curves.. I adjusted the value curve to darken the highlights in this layer. Again, I experimented until I achieved the desired outcome.
March 14, 2010 at 2:30 pm (Black & White, Landscape & Outdoors, March, photoblog)
Rain rain rain…and now, WIND too.
Went on my weekly walk around the bluff this morning. The tide was in, the waves were crashing, the surfers were out. And I was getting wet!! Darn weather. I kept getting caught in blustery squalls sweeping across the coast. I stayed dry most of the time, as did my camera. Thankfully. One of the look outs on the bluff walk was like being in a wind tunnel…it was insanely breezy! Cleverly, I took off my hat before I stepped out onto the look out. I still have my hat!
Nothing too fancy in processing for this shot today. In UFRaw I used the Cloudy WB setting…surprisingly….or not. In GIMP I added a hard light layer after first desaturating and using auto-levels on the original layer.
March 14, 2010 at 2:27 pm (Black & White, March, photoblog)
Tags: black and white, bring out the eyes, child, GIMP, photography, ufraw
Another child-inspired shot today I’m afraid. You may be wondering where my oldest daughter has gone…or not. But the fact is, she’s on to Mum these days and runs away when I pull out my camera. Her other option is to pull strange faces, resulting in a photo I’d rather not share. She makes a cameo appearance today, sitting in her little sisters pram in the background of the photo.
Right – did a few fancy adjustments today to get the image light and bright, and to “bring out the eyes”.
In UFRaw, I simply selected the Cloudy WB. The photo, while taken indoors, was lit with filtered overcast light from the window. Cloudy WB best suited the photo.
Now in GIMP, I added 2 layers. A soft light layer, in which I adjusted the value curve to make it bright. I duplicated this layer and made it an overlay layer (I must point out that I see VERY little difference between overlay and soft light…I chose it anyway….). I also brightened this layer a touch to increase the bright glow on the skin.
Now for the tricky part….tricky-ish anyway. On the base layer (which was desaturated at the start…forgot to mention that) – I zoomed in and selected the area around her eye…pupils and iris only…not the whites of the eyes. Using the SHIFT key, and switching from the circular selection to freestyle selection (in the tool bar), I again selected the other eye. I copied and pasted this into a new layer, which I put on top of all the other layers. In the Filters>Enhance… menu, I chose Unsharp Mask…
I set the unsharp mask to Radius=8.0; Amount=1.10; Threshold=6. From there, I adjusted the curve to make it brighter. What this essentially does is add “POP” to the eyes. I helps them stand out. Now, to make sure the child/person doesn’t come out looking like a demon, adjust the transparency of the ‘eye’ layer until it looks believable. If anyone wants more detailed instructions on this, let me know.
March 14, 2010 at 8:54 am (Black & White, March, photoblog)
Tags: 365, black and white, child, GIMP, photography
I was going for a sunset image today, but changed my mind…I wasn’t sure I could make it work in black and white. Also, the sunset shot I took was exposed incorrectly. Ii exposed for the terrain rather than the pretty light. As such, the sky is blown out. Disappointing.
Anyway, my kids were having a blast today and I was snapping a few shots of them. At one stage, my youngest, who is learning to walk, took off with some booty! Mum’s lens cap. Results are above in my image of the day!
This photo was a JPEG originally, so no need for any processing through UFRaw today. In GIMP I cropped the photo a little and made it black and white. I tried to add a texture layer, but nothing was really working for me today, so I left it out.
March 9, 2010 at 2:45 pm (Black & White, March, photoblog)
Tags: black and white, extension tube, GIMP, monochrome, photo, photography, project 365, ufraw
Got out the extension tubes again and started snapping some abstract shots. This photo is of a metal tube with a torch light shone down one end. The rest of the room was dark, thus the picture is mostly black.
Processed from RAW to JPEG through UFRaw with no adjustments. In GIMP I did auto-levels, desaturated the image and added a grain merge layer.
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