Stumbleupon

Anyone from you using Stumbleupon? I’ve been using it for many years now, always when I’m in a mood for something funny, or when I need some inspiration. I recently also added a stumble button to all my posts, so it’s easier to also add my site to their database. So feel free to stumble :) And you can also find me on Stumbleupon here under my profile.

Free eBook

For those who missed it, I made an E-book for all my newsletter subscribers. You can find it very useful, especially with the upcoming new years fireworks :) So head over to the newsletter page for more information. A lot of you already downloaded it, and I hope you find the information useful. And here is a little quote about the book, I really liked :)

What a gorgeous eBook! Comprehensive and informative! The photos are so amazingly shot and processed, as is the text that frames them. The best eBook that is ever written on fireworks. Good for : Beginners and Intermediates – Vineet Suthan

Sparkling Christmas tree

I did a little photo-shooting in the Central Shopping center in Bratislava on Tuesday. It was very nice of them to give me a permit to use a tripod there. Of course I could shoot it only during their opening hours, which is not so easy. Especially before christmas, it is full of people all the time. But with a lot of photos, and long exposures, I managed to have my photos quite people free :)

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

My very first HDR

You probably can imagine how horrible it was :) And you can see it here. I found it some time ago on my hard-drive, so I thought I share it. I’m not even sure when I took it, but it was around 5-6 years ago, even before I bought my first camera (I had to borrow one to try it out). I just wanted to try it out, and I haven’t started taking photos for over a year after that. You can see in it all the classic mistakes one can do with HDR. I’m glad that my photos no longer look like that :)

Imagenomic Noiseware review

I added quite a few reviews recently, and today there will be another one. This time its Imagenomic Noiseware, currently my preferred plugin for noise reduction in Photoshop. Head over to the Noiseware review to find out more.

Cold evening with cool clouds

Sometimes even ugly weather can create an interesting sky. Same with this one from Sunday. It was cold, foggy, with a mostly clear sky. But exactly around sunset it became more interesting, and I got few shots. I was standing on one of the piers by the Eurovea Shopping center, and as it’s above the Danube, it was freaking cold there. And even bigger problem was, that the pier shakes like crazy when someone walks onto it. Luckily, it was already dark, so not many people around. But of course, once people saw me on the pier, they had to go there, even if they just got to the end and turned around. They haven’t even looked at the nice view. I always say that I don’t understand people, and I probably never will :)

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine from 5 shots and finished in Photoshop.

2 000 000 views

I just checked the statistics on my Smugmug portfolio site, and it show that I just passed 2 000 000 photo views for this year. I want to say a big thanks to all of you who visit my blog and portfolio, and I hope you all like the photos :)

Oloneo Photoengine – review

Continuing with my reviews, for today I have for you a review of a program I mentioned a lot of times recently, mostly due to the contest :) Head over to the review to find out what I like about Oloneo Photoengine, and how it can be useful in your post-processing.

Sparkling lights

The weather recently is not that great in Bratislava, and as there also is no snow, I haven’t been taking many photos. But I wanted some with the Christmas decorations, as they are quite a few around the city. I particularly like the ones by the Eurovea Shopping center, as they are made all from lights. It was a little challenge not to have any people in the shot, but with a little timing, bracketing and cloning out, I got it empty :)

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine from 5 exposures and then finished in Photoshop. I had to recover the bright lights, as I wanted them to really shine.

Kickstarter

Review of the Leash by Peak Design

And one of my recently backed projects on Kickstarter was also the Capture Camera clip v2. And together with it I ordered also all the other products form Peak Design. I will add reviews of all of them to the blog over the next weeks, so lets start with the camera strap called Leash.

Lakeside reflection in blue

As I stated in my Top 5 Photography spots in Bratislava page, the Kuchajda lake is the best place for reflections in Bratislava. As you can see also in this photo, the lake is mostly so calm that you get almost a perfect reflection. It’s even more fun when the lake freezes over. It gives a nice reflection and you get much more freedom in the compositions. In this photo you can see the Lakeside park tower during a very clear blue hour.

This is a HDR from 5 shots, created in Oloneo Photoengine and finished in Photoshop. I only did very few tweaks here, mostly just to bring out the blue color and tweak the contrast.

Custom Google maps

Do you know about Google custom maps? Do you use them? Custom maps on Google allow you to add you own points on a map, add description to them and then share the map. I quite often create one before a trip, to note the spots I really do not want to miss. Sometimes I even add links to images, so I better remember what on that particular place.  This were a part of the old Google maps, and now are accessible through settings/my places. I really hope they don’t remove them.

What do you use to note locations? I’m open to some suggestions :)

Nik Viveza 2 review

And another plugin you may find useful. Find whats Nik Viveza 2 for and how you could use it, in this new review. And don’t forget to take a look at all the other reviews, in my newly reorganized Review page.

Framed city

I was thinking about, how to make this view different than in my other photos. So why not try framing. So I crouched down and tried looking through the bridge railing, and this is what I got. Looks quite different, doesn’t it? In retrospect, I would prefer to have also the railing sharp, with some detail, but I forgot to take a refocused photo. So maybe next time.

This is a HDR created in Oloneo Photoengine, blended with original exposures in Photoshop.