Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” Workshop Day 3. Cow Canyon Trading Post and NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.
An additional example of the new NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. The image of the Cow Canyon Trading Post was taken on day 3 of the 2008 Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” workshop at while driving through Bluff Utah. The first image was converted to B&W using Silver Efex Pro 2. The second image is the original RAW image processed with Capture One Pro 6.
Cow Canyon Trading Post. Image taken with a Nikon D300 and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 200, 80 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec). NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.
Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” Workshop Day 2. Silver Efex Pro 2.
An additional example of the new NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. The image was taken on day 2 of the 2008 Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” workshop at Kelly Place in Cortez Colorado. The first image was converted to B&W using Silver Efex Pro 2. The second image is the original RAW image processed with Capture One Pro 6. Lighting for this image is sunlight coming in through the roof entry and a gold reflector.
Kiva Sunbeam. Kelly Place, Cortez Colorado. Elderhostel “Southwest Photography” Workshop Day 2. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 20 mm, f/4, 1/50 sec). Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. (David J Mathre)Kiva Sunbeam. Kelly Place, Cortez Colorado. Elderhostel “Southwest Photography” Workshop Day 2. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 20 mm, f/4, 1/50 sec). (David J Mathre)
Photography Workshop “Yosemite in Winter: A Season of Contrast” with Michael Mariant. Day 1: Yosemite National Park.
NIK just released version 2 of their Silver Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. I have been using version 1 of Silver Efex since it was released for converting digital images to monochrome (black & white). The new version has the look and feel of NIK’s HDR plugin. The first image is the original taken a year ago during the “Yosemite in Winter: A Season in Contrast” photography workshop (RAW image processed with Capture One Pro, and sharpened with Focus Magic in Photoshop CS5), the second is the B&W version converted using the new Silver Efex 2.
Yosemite Valley in Winter. Nikonians 2010 Yosemite Winter Workshop Day 1. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and 50 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 200, f/8, 1/40 sec). Capture One Pro 6. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Focus Magic.Yosemite Valley in Winter. Nikonians 2010 Yosemite Winter Workshop Day 1. Image taken with a Nikon D3s and 50 mm f/1.4G lens (ISO 200, f/8, 1/40 sec). Capture One Pro 6. Adobe Photoshop CS5, Focus Magic, NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.
Elderhostel “Photography in the Southwest” Workshop Day 1. Star Trails.
The following image is a composite of five 30 minute night sky exposures taken during a Elderhostel/Road Scholar photography workshop at Kelly Place outside of Cortez, Colorado in 2008. It was really dark other than the Christmas lights at the main building, and you could see a lot of stars in the sky. I moved the tripod as far away from the lights as possible and decided to do this series with a fisheye lens that would give a 180° field of view. The five images were combined using Startrails. This program is old (only works with jpg or 8-bit tif files) but works better than when I try to merge the images as layers in Photoshop.
Winter night sky looking north at Kelley’s Place near Cortez, Colorado. Composite of four images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 30 min). (David J Mathre)
Individual images in this slide show can be viewed here.
Backyard Winter Nature in New Jersey: Turkey Vulture and Using Focus Magic to Remove Motion Blur.
I often use Focus Magic to sharpen images. I prefer using this program since it uses a deconvolution algorithm to sharpen the image, rather than unsharp mask (USM). Here is an example where I used Focus Magic to remove motion blur. On the down side, Focus Magic has not been updated for some time and only runs as a 32-bit application. I can only use it as a plugin in Photoshop CS5 when running the 32-bit version of CS5. For this example I am using an image of a Turkey Vulture in flight (from four-years ago). I tried to improve the sharpness of the head, eye, and beak. The 2nd and 3rd image are 1:1 zooms of the head — first without removing the motion blur, and the second with the motion blur removed (350°, 9 pixels). The results are not perfect, but better than the original image. One of the reasons I do not delete images — new software can sometimes be used to recover and image that previously would have been rejected.
Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)Turkey Vulture in Flight. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm Lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec). Raw image processed using Capture One Pro 6, and Photoshop CS5. Motion blur reduced using Focus Magic. (David J Mathre)
