TopazAdjust

Photo: Stone Harbor Resort

Photo: One of the waterfront facing buildings of the Stone Harbor Resort, overlooking the frozen waters of Sturgeon Bay.

This was shot from the first early morning session I did over the weekend up in Wisconsin. I shot it as an HDR image, and at the time, I was a little unsure how it would turn out because of the overcast skies that early in the day left me no shadows to play with.

Photomatix took it close to halfway of what you see here, but Topaz Adjust brought out even more detail, and gave the building a nice two tone look from the brick and the other paneling.

Hockey Alert!

For those that were following along on my new Facebook page late last week, might have caught that I picked up on a hockey game one of my former players was playing in down in Green Bay. It’s been a longer delay than I had anticipated, but I’m going through all the shots now and getting ready to post them.

So, if you liked the recent hockey shots from a few weeks ago, time for another skate.

– Kris

Photo: Ice Parking

Photo: A pickup truck parked out on a frozen Europe Lake in Northern Door County, WI.

I captured this image while standing in the middle of a frozen lake up in Door County over the weekend. There were a few vehicles out there with adventurous ice fisherman braving the elements and enjoying a popular winter pastime in this part of the country.

Even though there were entire pickup trucks and minivans driving around on this ice, we were still a little leery about trekking out ourselves. Seeing as I grew up playing hockey my whole life, you’d think being out on a frozen lake would come natural, but playing it safe seemed to be the order of the day. Looking back, I almost wish I had brought my skates like I did the previous winter trip up north.

Photo: Across the Frozen Bay

Photo: A look at the Stone Harbor Resort in Sturgeon Bay, WI from the Bayview Park located just on the other side of the water.

Let the darkroom work commence! Now that we’re back home from our latest road trip up north, it’s time to get cranking on processing and uploading all the photos I took.

This first shot is from a series I did on Saturday afternoon, about an hour before sunset. We’re looking East here towards the resort we were staying at this time. The park where this was taken is visible from the resort via my telephoto lens, so I had to scope it out on Google Maps and make the drive over there.

Can’t wait to come back to this spot during the warm summer months.

– Kris

Before and After: East Maui

It’s been fun being out “on location” up here in Door County, WI this weekend. I managed to take shots for a few different ideas and images that I’ll be processing when I return home, including a friend’s hockey game in Green Bay we found out about that same morning. Once I’m back home and in front of my 24” monitor in the digital darkroom, I’ll be sharing those results, soon.

In the meantime, and to keep the stream of images coming, I thought I’d start a new series to showcase some of my work in the digital darkroom and touch on some of the tools I use from time-to-time. These aren’t going to be full tutorials, more of just a little peak under the covers and maybe a little inspiration for others in the process.

For the first image in this new series, the featured tool is Topaz Adjust.

The Before Image

The image below was one I was already particularly fond of. It was taken back in April ’08 on a visit to Maui’s east coast.

To me, this misty view of Koki Beach had a certain mystique to it, and my original attention was to enhance that aspect of the image. What happened, however, was the creation of an entirely new, maybe even more powerful, image as a result of using the Spicify preset in Topaz Adjust.

The After Image

Since I hadn’t visualized this artful look as my intended output, my initial reaction was a surprising “Whoa!” It certainly was an entirely new image, and it was love at first sight. I toned down the saturation just a tad, removed a little noise, and that was it. Sure, that mist is all but gone, but it’s not missed that much now.

More About Topaz Adjust

Topaz Adjust, from Topaz Labs, is still relatively new to me. I first heard about it from a keynote presentation by Rick Sammon entitled “Awaken the Artist Within” at the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival. I will have more to say about Topaz Adjust when I feature it as part of my revamped Software series here at the blog, but if you haven’t experienced it for yourself yet, go ahead and grab the 30-day trial from their website.

If you’re still not convinced, stay tuned to blog for more before and after images, and I assure you that you’ll be a little curious about what it can do for the large archive of photos you have on that hard drive of yours.

Thoughts?

I admit beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as we all have different tastes and dislikes. Please share your thoughts on the particular outcome shown above, as the broader range of opinions and feedback I receive helps me to gauge which direction my little experiments are headed.

As this is the first post in the new series, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on it. As stated, my goal is to showcase a little of my creative side and maybe inspire others out there to tinker a little bit outside of what they do now. Future posts in this series will likely be less wordy, so I hope to crank them out with a decent amount of frequency.

Photo: The Lahaina Harbor Experiment

Photo: Boats docked in their slips in Lahaina Harbor in the early morning, awaiting the day’s tours.

That title almost sounds like a Matt Damon action thriller, doesn’t it?  I also thought of, “Dude, Where’s My Boat?” referencing the two empty slips there, but be glad I didn’t.

I’m calling this an experiment – possibly the first of many – because I’m trying something new here, and while not entirely excited about the result, I wanted to share and elicit feedback and comments about how it could be improved.  Based on any additional ideas, I may repost a new version for a little before-and-after.

Behind The Experiment

This shot wasn’t too bad in full color, but there were parts to it that I wasn’t sold on. I thought about trying just a plain black and white photo, but decided on leaving just a dash of color.  Maybe it’s the little voice in me that wants to shoot more infrared shots, I don’t know. There is just that realm between black and white and ever so subtle color that almost plays tricks on your mind as to whether there is color there or you’re just imagining it in your mind’s eye.

On the technical side, I did some exposure correction and a few saturation tweaks in ACR before I decided it wasn’t working.  I actually applied the Topaz Adjust Photo Pop filter just prior to adding the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.  It might be considered sacrilege to use Topaz Adjust and then undo all the colors, but it’s an experiment.

Primary it was the blues and the greens that I was try to leave as subtle, and for added mind-trickery, I left the guy on the boat to the right in his red shirt as-is, seeing as though it was the only red in the original image.

Give It To Me Straight

Okay, I’m shutting my eyes hard and bracing for the worst.  Please share your thoughts, whether you like it or think it’s awful.  If you could also comment on what parts you don’t like about it, that will help me a lot.  If something does happen to work for you in what’s already there, mention that, too.  You can tell I’m a glass-half-empty kind of guy, eh?

Thanks in advance for your feedback,
– Kris