Photo Walk

I liked how the trunks/branches of the trees really stood out on this one:

Because of the high contrast, I did layered masking post processing work to retain both the cloud and tree detail.

Belly shot for a different perspective:


I loved the clump shapes and the lush new green color coming up on these flowers. There's a flower bud there, but can hardly see it.

These two looked so cute staring out the window as I walked by the house:


Bur Oaks are fabulous trees:

So much texture and character in the bark and branches.

Mallards

Don't have any mallard pics posted to my blog either.
Here's the couple:


Quack, quack, quack:





In flight (not very good, but I'll post anyway):


npwrc
cornell
enature

UPDATE: 23 May 10
More, different views of the mallard.
Same place, maybe not same duck.
These were taken with the XSi and tele, so a little closer. I did some layer masking to sharpen duck and soften background a little more.

Color Masking A Photo

I'm digging around in my photography archives for possible photos to play around with.
Here's one I thought might be good for color masking.



I suppose there's a dozen different ways to do this.
I did it with masking and layering.

I greyscaled a copy, increased colors, copy/paste as layer on top of original color photo.
And then created a mask and used the airbrush to "paint" back in the color where I wanted it.
I like masking with an airbrush because it's easy to "undo" if I don't like it.
I didn't know where to stop with the coloring!
I have no idea what kind of plant this is.
There were these teensy "hearts" deep within this big mass of trees/bushes on a nature walk.
Zoomed in with my S3 Canon and got this shot (cropped).

I've blogged about the airbrush masking stuff before, here.

Radial Blur and Landrollers

I caught some Dog Whisperer episodes on the National Geographic Channel and wondered what kind of skates Cesar Millan wore.

They are Landrollers. Noticed the pic at the Landroller site and tried to duplicate the effect in Paint Shop Pro using radial blur zoom and masking. Turned out pretty good. (Found the original googling.) The Landroller website added the helmet too, evidently.

Duplicate layer the original image, radial blur zoom, then added a mask and airbrushed out the areas I wanted in focus.

Airbrush settings need to be very soft so edges won't show.


Layer Palette.


Can duplicate the entire mask layers group and fiddle with layer opacity and blend modes for various lighting and contrast effects.