Home - Stewart Baird HDR Photography

Saturday

Jul312010

He's talking to you....

Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 2:00AM

He’s talking to you… a fun shot with the lego man. A great way to spend a rainy Saturday; makeup some fun photos with lego men, better than Playstation!

This one was taken with my Canon 7D, noise reduced with Noiseware and then Nik Color Efex Pro used to finish-off.

This one was taken with my favorite indoor lens; the Canon 50mm 1.8, f/5 at 800 ISO.

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Friday

Jul302010

A very gloomy day brought to life by some HDR and a little Photoshop. This is a 3 exposure HDR taken in the South Island of New Zealand, driving towards Akaroa. The weather got worse and worse, as we drove along. Rain was being driven from the South, bringing the gloom with it. I stopped long enough to setup a tripod and capture the scene. It was still a little drab so, in Photoshop I blended in some paint stain textures after a visit to the lovely lady Topaz Adjust.

It just goes to show that you can make a little magic from anything!

See it on black here.

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Thursday

Jul292010

Green darkness

Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 2:00AM

It’s amazing how dark it can get under the tree cover. Everything is tinted with green! We came across this little creek along the path, the water was pretty shallow and reflected the yellow and green from nearby plants. The photo itself was taken at a reasonably low ISO and needed quite a bit of “work” to bring it up to scratch (everything looked a little flat).

Here’s insight into what I did… A little cleanup on the RAW in Aperture (exposure, white balance and shadows) and then into Photoshop; from there it gets a bit hazy J. (Keep in mind I was doing this on my 15 minute train ride!).

Topaz Adjust (Spicify) was used to boost the overall image (dialling down some of the details settings). Then I processed two times with Nik Color Efex (Tonal filter) and then I painted in a little Glamour Glow (mainly on the outside). Finally I adjusted the curves slightly in Photoshop.

See it on black here.

Details:

Canon 7D
17-85 mm @ 17 mm
ISO 160, F/10
1.0s

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Wednesday

Jul282010

Glamour Trees

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 2:00AM

The sun was low over the hill, filtered through the pine trees across the ridge-line. I liked the way it set off the red of the trees with the richness of the evergreen. I cropped this photo slightly to change the placement of the tree. It was getting cold so we turned for home, in search of a coffee and roaring fire…

Single RAW exposure, adjusted in Aperture to deal with a couple of blown-out areas. Nik Color Efex Pro really helped here; the trick I used was an inverted graduated filter. Using this helped to soften the foreground. Some other minor (masked) Color Efex treatments with Glamour Glow to finish. I almost never apply an effect to the whole image but rather mask-in only the parts I want to focus on.

See it on black here.

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Tuesday

Jul272010

Happy Fruit

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 2:00AM

The mind of a 6 year old… give him a bowl of fruit and this is what he comes-up with! It’s interesting what you can create if you are intentional; this time it was a case of looking around at what was in the kitchen. This is a single exposure, with light reflected off a cake base (a silver tray basically). It was late in the day so the light was nice and warm. Then a little work in Topaz Adjust, Color Efex Pro and then a single texture masked-in with Photoshop CS5. The texture was a photo of some pavement I had taken earlier.