1 000 000 views

And I just got another milestone for one of my accounts. This time it’s the first 1 000 000 vies on my Flickr portfolio under http://www.flickr.com/photos/theodevil/. I actually started publishing my photos there, and it’s the oldest of all my photo accounts :)

The colorful Eiffel tower

I never can edit photo when my head hurts. And as I just got a cold, my head hurts like crazy. So for today, I only have a very quick edit of a night photo from Paris. And I’m going to bet to get some sleep :)

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine and finished in Photoshop.

Photo selected for Editor’s choice

For the first time ever, one of my photos has been selected for the Editor’s choice category on 500px. Recently I’ve been posting there more and more and my photos get quite a good response there. So it look like more photos will find their way there :) You can see the selected photo here, or my account on 500px here.

Flooded by the sunlight

This looks almost nothing like what I got from the camera. This was such a low contrast scene. The sun with the low clouds and the air being full of moisture, just filled everything with light and it all looked the same. As the name says, it was flooded by sunlight :) When I edited it, I added a lot of contrast, but still wanted to keep the feeling of all the sunlight. I’m not really sure about the color. Somehow especially by photos like this, they look different on every monitor. Sometime the yellow is more red, sometime more green. One would think with all the standards, the manufacturers of screens could finally create all monitors with the same colors. But we can just dream about that.

This image is created from two shots, both 5 exposures. One taken normally, one with the sun covered, so I can remove the flares (check my tutorial on removing flares for more details). I then created two HDR images in Oloneo Photoengine and blended them in Photoshop.

Trey Ratcliff’s New Zeland Photography tutorial

Just finished watching Trey Ratcliff’s latest HDR video tutorial. Yes, I watch other photographers tutorials, and I do it a lot. I probably watch everything about HDR and landscape photography. It does not mater how good I think my photos are (or bad :)), there is still a lot to learn.

I like Trey’s videos, even if I don’t learn that much from them anymore. His videos are mostly made for beginners and he often goes through editing basics. Still it’s intersting to see how a another photographer edits his photos, and I always end out with few new ideas, on what to implement in my own photo processing.

So if you are a beginner in HDR photography, or somewhere around intermediate level, and you like Trey’s style, this is a must watch. If you are already quite familiar with HDR photo editing, you will probably find something new in his videos, but probably not that much.

More information can be found on the New Zealand tutorial page and if you decide to give them a try and buy them, use code “SIC-6591” for 10% discount :)

Dual screen wallpapers

I have updated the wallpapers section of this blog with something new :). This time, it’s 4 dual screen wallpapers, all with the resolution of 3840×1200 (so really big). These are best for two monitors, both at full HD, or smaller. Head over to the wallpapers page to download them.

Sunny side of Paris

This one took so long to edit, and I’m not even sure I’m satisfied with it. This happen’s when one takes photos in not that great light. But as I was in Paris only few days, and some of them it was raining, I had to take photos every opportunity I got. If I was at home, I would not even go out to shoot in such light. But the result is not that bad :)

I took this photo in May of this year, and I think it’s obvious where it was taken. It was my first trip to Paris on my own, and as I don’t speak a word of french, it was also quite an adventure. But luckily I prepare quite a lot before my trips, so after a day I felt completely at ease, with having no problems finding my way in Paris. And I know I will go there again, as soon as possible :)

For this photo, I had to take two series of 5 brackets, one with my hand covering the sun (check out my tutorial on removing lens flares to see why). I then created two HDR photos in Photomatix, each one from 5 brackets. I then blended those together with the original shots in Photoshop. Btw. I left the lens distortion in the photo on purpose. I had a version where I removed it, but than the photo lost the feeling of scale and depth, which I didn’t liked.

I just love this high up places. The view is always so great. And especially when the city lights up. This is of course from top of the Tour Montparnasse in Paris.

My trip to Paris this year was actually my second visit to Paris. First time it was 13 years ago, on a school trip. It’s really strange how I got a completely different feeling of the city now, than I had than. Probably I just notice more and different things than in my younger days :)

This is a HDR from 5 shots created in Oloneo Photoengine and than blended with original exposures in Photoshop.

Another Tuesday, another process post. For today I chosen a photo I took around midnight in Paris. As you will see, this were and easier edit, where I only had to correct few things.

So to get this result

I did the following edits in Photoshop (layers nubmered from bottom up)
1. I started with the +1EV exposure
2+3. darkened few areas from the 0EV exposure, and also pushed the 0EV towards darker tones with the levels adjustment
4. still few more areas corrected from the -2EV exposure
5. there was detail missing in the bottom left corner, so I added it using the high pass filter
6+7. added glow (veiw my glow tutorial)
8. added 0.7 exposure to almost the whole image. I do this quite often, as higher exposure makes the photo more colorfull and vibrant.
9. added more contrast to the bright areas of the photo

And that was all. Continue to the full post to see the original 0EV exposure