Well August is here and I've started my 6th month anniversary with the Dailies Crew and I must say I have met so many wonderful people and fantastic talented artists here. You all have brought a smile to my face each & every day along with helping my creativity EXPLOAD allowing my artistic ideas to come out on film which can only benefit myself & my clients. I have learned so many new techniques as well, even after 30 years of playing with photography all my instructors were right, you NEVER stop learning in this game. I look forward to another great month here and hope you all continue to enjoy this group of wonderful folks as much as I do.
Best Regards,
~Bill Pador~
Best Regards,
~Bill Pador~
'Artistic HDR Abstract' - "GHOSTLY COUPLE DRINK WINE"
Tonight I was at home relaxing when my good friend John Murphy gave me a call from his vacation location (BTW-He sends his regards to everyone). Well we were BS-ing & started discussing photography (imagine that) while I was setting up my POD for today in my still life studio which 'WAS' planned out to be a simple shot of 4 Crystal Glasses set up a certain way so that I could get an effect I had thought up. Well our conversation happen to change to HDR some how which made me scrap my original idea in turn for an HDR capture of the glasses.
"The Set-Up & Post Production Details"
The original image/layer of the Glasses themselves you see have very little post done to it after the HDR tone mapping believe it or not. I set the studio up with several small canister lights and covered them with 2 colored plastic cups you use for outdoor for BBQ's and such (not the throw away kind but thick picnic re-washable type) that were laying on the table from a previous project I just happened to see and decided to see what effects I could get using them over some lights. 1 Blue and 1 Purple plastic cup covered light were set to the left of the crystal glasses pointing towards 2 separate 12" x 12" mirror squares on both sides to reflect the light back onto the stem ware. The crystal glasses have black stems with a small flower type design just under the glass itself (you can see the light reflected on this part in color). The glasses were lined up straight behind each other and then the shot was made off-setting the camera about 25' to the right allowing the glasses to appear in a diagonal pattern. (5) bracket shots were made with a total exposure adjustment of 1.0 EV capturing the colored light reflecting off the stems and through the crystal in complete darkness with just the 2 small 40 watt bulbs casting their magic making it look like the glasses had neon lights on them (perfect for a HDR project I thought)
The (5) RAW images were then combined into an HDR and then tone mapped in Photomatix Pro 3 and saved. Passing into CS3 the image was then sharpened slightly and saved. I then made a copy of the image, flipped it horizontally 180' to make a mirrored image and combined the 2 on an adjusted re sized canvas. After cropping I was really impressed with the results and almost posted it as is but really felt in an artistic mode so I carried it to the next step. Multiple layers were constructed and I began airbrushing in the slight white cloud texture on the sides to frame it using the shapes of a man & woman preparing to drink (look closely you should see the shadows of them - man on right woman on left), then another layer was added to extend the canvas and I began molding the orange smoke you see (which was a smoke image I had captured for my smoke art project) I combined approx. 12 layers of smoke (all the same image section) at different angles were laid down then erasing the edges with a soft brush and changing opacity levels while rotating them into place resulted in the effect you see on the final smoke/fire shape (*representing the adult madness that shadow couple will have after those drinks LOL). *Just a note: Only a small cropped section of the original smoke image was used, the same cropped piece was used to create the entire orange platform image you see here by pasting & rotating it with various opacity levels.
Thanks to John Murphy for inspiring me to create this image, without you John I would have been done with my POD in 30 min. or less but since we had our HDR conversation it resulted in a FOUR & HALF hour mega project (I'll get you back don't worry pal LOL) Really tho Thanks John, it;s really amazing how your artistic mind is inspired by everyday things. Hope you like it ~Bill~
*Mr. Murphy is unable to sign onto SmugMug for uploads where he is on vacation due to a poor internet connection, but is doing his POD's everyday and will upload upon his return at the end of the week. . .
~"AVAILABLE FOR PRINT PURCHASE"~
This artistic creation is available for purchase in High Resolution for up to 30" x 40" Canvas wall mount prints in signed & unsigned versions in my 'PHOTO ART 4 SALE' Gallery by CLICKING HERE
'Artistic HDR Abstract' - "GHOSTLY COUPLE DRINK WINE"
Tonight I was at home relaxing when my good friend John Murphy gave me a call from his vacation location (BTW-He sends his regards to everyone). Well we were BS-ing & started discussing photography (imagine that) while I was setting up my POD for today in my still life studio which 'WAS' planned out to be a simple shot of 4 Crystal Glasses set up a certain way so that I could get an effect I had thought up. Well our conversation happen to change to HDR some how which made me scrap my original idea in turn for an HDR capture of the glasses.
"The Set-Up & Post Production Details"
The original image/layer of the Glasses themselves you see have very little post done to it after the HDR tone mapping believe it or not. I set the studio up with several small canister lights and covered them with 2 colored plastic cups you use for outdoor for BBQ's and such (not the throw away kind but thick picnic re-washable type) that were laying on the table from a previous project I just happened to see and decided to see what effects I could get using them over some lights. 1 Blue and 1 Purple plastic cup covered light were set to the left of the crystal glasses pointing towards 2 separate 12" x 12" mirror squares on both sides to reflect the light back onto the stem ware. The crystal glasses have black stems with a small flower type design just under the glass itself (you can see the light reflected on this part in color). The glasses were lined up straight behind each other and then the shot was made off-setting the camera about 25' to the right allowing the glasses to appear in a diagonal pattern. (5) bracket shots were made with a total exposure adjustment of 1.0 EV capturing the colored light reflecting off the stems and through the crystal in complete darkness with just the 2 small 40 watt bulbs casting their magic making it look like the glasses had neon lights on them (perfect for a HDR project I thought)
The (5) RAW images were then combined into an HDR and then tone mapped in Photomatix Pro 3 and saved. Passing into CS3 the image was then sharpened slightly and saved. I then made a copy of the image, flipped it horizontally 180' to make a mirrored image and combined the 2 on an adjusted re sized canvas. After cropping I was really impressed with the results and almost posted it as is but really felt in an artistic mode so I carried it to the next step. Multiple layers were constructed and I began airbrushing in the slight white cloud texture on the sides to frame it using the shapes of a man & woman preparing to drink (look closely you should see the shadows of them - man on right woman on left), then another layer was added to extend the canvas and I began molding the orange smoke you see (which was a smoke image I had captured for my smoke art project) I combined approx. 12 layers of smoke (all the same image section) at different angles were laid down then erasing the edges with a soft brush and changing opacity levels while rotating them into place resulted in the effect you see on the final smoke/fire shape (*representing the adult madness that shadow couple will have after those drinks LOL). *Just a note: Only a small cropped section of the original smoke image was used, the same cropped piece was used to create the entire orange platform image you see here by pasting & rotating it with various opacity levels.
Thanks to John Murphy for inspiring me to create this image, without you John I would have been done with my POD in 30 min. or less but since we had our HDR conversation it resulted in a FOUR & HALF hour mega project (I'll get you back don't worry pal LOL) Really tho Thanks John, it;s really amazing how your artistic mind is inspired by everyday things. Hope you like it ~Bill~
*Mr. Murphy is unable to sign onto SmugMug for uploads where he is on vacation due to a poor internet connection, but is doing his POD's everyday and will upload upon his return at the end of the week. . .
~"AVAILABLE FOR PRINT PURCHASE"~
This artistic creation is available for purchase in High Resolution for up to 30" x 40" Canvas wall mount prints in signed & unsigned versions in my 'PHOTO ART 4 SALE' Gallery by CLICKING HERE
