Archive for the ‘Photos’ Category

Last week has been eventful. After shooting various type of photos for over 7 years I’ve decided I want to practice and grow my portfolio of modeling, fashion and headshots. Not an easy task, I might add. If shooting nature, landscapes, city and architecture requires only camera, fashion and modeling requires… right – models.

In order to add some items into my portfolio I’ve signed up for Model Mayhem account, signed up with local photography group and placed an add on Craigslist. Some of that stuff started to pay off. I had one shoot with Craigslist inquiry, one MeetUp with Vancouver Photo group and have at least of dozen, maybe more, photos that I can include in my portfolio.

As I started to work on those photos, I came across interesting problem (or challenge) in Photoshop – it will open JPEG images as RAW files… hmmm…

A bit about my workflow: currently I am working with Aperture, DxO Optics Pro and Photoshop (I tried Camera Raw 7 that came with Photoshop CS6, but it does not work with my workflow):

- I first import RAW files into Aperture, sort through ‘bad’ shots – over exposed, closed eyes and any other photos that are plain and simple – garbage. Usually I end up with 60%-70% of originally taken photos. I delete those RAW files and load rest into DxO.

- Here I go through all of them and adjust lens correction, color rendering, sharpness and fine details. Maybe a bit of exposure correction, but not too much. Once that is done, images are exported as JPEGs to a separate folder – now that are ready for second pass within Aperture.

- One step that is optional, and depends on the type of shooting I’ve done, is panorama sticking or HDR rendering. For that I use either Photoshop’s Photomerge, AutopanoGiga and HDR Efex Pro.

- During second pass, I select best shots of each pose, sometimes select best pose and end up with maybe 5%-10% of original photos.

- Now, at final step, I adjust each image and make it just right – either within Aperture or in Photoshop. I must add I use Nik’s plugins such as Color Efex Pro, Viveza etc and Topaz Labs filters.

- Once all is done, export to Flickr, CD or email.

Recently I came across Brenizer Method of shooting shallow depth of field at wide angle, which requires Photoshop Photomerge. As I was playing with some photos from my last weeks’ photoshoot in Camera Raw, Photoshop started picking up those files as Camera Raw files and opening them as though thew are RAW format. With that, Photoshop overexposes them, adds some other adjustments, that I might have played with while testing Camera Raw, and merged image was coming up all wrong.

At first, I thought that maybe DxO exported JPEG as a RAW, or something wonky went with that file. But after exporting two images, which were shot one after another, and trying to open them in Photoshop, one appeared as JPEG and another as RAW. This didn’t make sense to me at all!

After searching online for similar problem, I came across article which shows how to open JPEG in Camera Raw! Well, that’s exact opposite of what I want to do! But following those steps and changing setting to the opposite of what that article suggested, fixed my problem. Now, when I open those JPEGs or try to merge them into panorama, they behave as expected.

Head out to my article section to find out.

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This is really cool photo snapped at McMillan space center park. Anybody knows what these Stop signs are suppose to represent?

I had previous post about interesting finding of watermarked iStockPhoto at Vancouver Downtown Costco location a while ago. Recently I’ve visited Port Coquitlam location and found three spec sheets in the camera department with watermarked iStockPhoto images.

I wonder where these spec sheets are created and who is quality controlling and approving it to be printed. I can understand that maybe some corner store would make a b/w print to promote their sale, but we are talking major retailer here. Or maybe it’s coming from Canon directly? Enjoy…

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I went to Vancouver Downtown Costco today for lunch, and while browsing cameras they had on display noticed that one of the camera’s promo/features page contained interesting image.

img_0225And it’s not really the content of an image that brought my attention, it was the source of that image.

You know, it is easy to spot an image that was used illigally if it was image. If it was image from one of the royalty free stock websites, it would be much more difficult, except…

… except if it has watermark on it… (sorry for the quality, had to snap it quickly on my iPhone)

Unbelievably this page had watermarked iStockPhoto… Really, Costco, your graphic designers cannot spend $10-$20 to purchase that image, or use Word ClipArt at least…

Epic fail…

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img_0214I’ve included photos from The Metropole photoshoot in my portfolio section.

Last Thursday I was walking by to grab the best wrap in Gastown, you know where it is, and I saw product of that photoshoot on their advertising board outside of the pub. I whipped out my iPhone and snapped this picture.

It feels so good to see your work, it was my first ‘commercial’ photoshoot. Another one was Loeka two weeks ago, coming to Protfolio section in the next half an hour. More to come…

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