telwink Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 So I'm relatively new at photography, and I had this photo I took from the 20th floor of my work building on the North side of downtown, facing Northwest. The sky was completely bleached out in the original, so I used masking layers in photoshop to select the sky, and re-adjust the Histogram as to fix the lighting. What came out of it is this pretty neat shot (I think), where you can see the curvature of the earth, you can see clouds for miles, and you can see rays of sunlight through the sky. Just thought I'd share on good ol' HAIF. Hope all you guys are doing well; thanks for checking out my photo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lockmat Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 The sky looks like it was painted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricco67 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 If you're relatively new to Photoshop, I think you did a kick job with the histogram. Took me quite awhile to be able to get used to that tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Cool photo! I like it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telwink Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 Hey, thanks for the kind words guys. Jax, your photography on Flickr is extremely impressive to say the least. In fact, powerful Houston photography like yours is what inspired me to get into the hobby. Keep up the great work. b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricco67 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 It's fun to take pictures, I always have a camera with me just in case. I've literally taken thousands of pictures.I was in downtown when I saw all the Vehicles heading towards the Metro Accident but I couldn't because I was doing something else. What kinda of camera do you have? I just have a cheapy 7megpix camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telwink Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 It's fun to take pictures, I always have a camera with me just in case. I've literally taken thousands of pictures.I was in downtown when I saw all the Vehicles heading towards the Metro Accident but I couldn't because I was doing something else. What kinda of camera do you have? I just have a cheapy 7megpix camera.Yes, having a camera on your person at all times is a great way to get some priceless photographs. As for my gear, I use a Canon 40D, which suits me pretty well. While good photography is all about what's behind the viewfinder etc etc, I'm pretty pleased with the camera thus far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Hey, thanks for the kind words guys. Jax, your photography on Flickr is extremely impressive to say the least. In fact, powerful Houston photography like yours is what inspired me to get into the hobby. Keep up the great work. b Thanks for the compliment! I think if more people take pictures of the nice parts of Houston and share them online, Houston's worldwide image might improve a bit. I'm amazed at how many times I show somebody a photo and they say "wait - Houston doesn't look like that. Where'd you take that?" Even people who have lived in Houston for years... I also take a lot of photos and carry a camera with me almost everywhere I go (except to work/school - I guess my camera is too big ). My library now has 11,874 photos in it! Man - I need a bigger hard drive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevfiv Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 the 40D seems like a nice camera...and i agree about always having a camera, whether it be a cellular or full size - you never know when and what you're going to see.i bought a fuji digital a while back, and while it seemed to have everything i wanted, i think i don't get what i want out of it because of my inability to use the camera properly. it has manual modes, but nothing ever looks right. i have a huge problem with glare and overexposure, no matter what i do.aaaaanyhow, i prefer simplicity...i would take one of my brownie box cameras around to take pictures, but they are so old and would probably jam all the time. and film is too expensive. as for the 40D - it's too expensive a camera to take along with me - i'd be too scared that i would hurt it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Yeah I always have my cell phone camera with me but at 1 megapixel, it's hardly worth using. The only good thing about it is I can email photos to my family for free right from the phone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricco67 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Jax: How do you have all your photos grouped? Just curious. I have mine sorted by month, and depending by how many pics I take, by week and event in seperate sub folders within that month. I need a better camera, mine is excellent if you're standing still and braced against a building, otherwise I get blurry images. I also miss my copy of photoshop. Daughter took my disk just a few weeks before my HD blew up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 I use iPhoto (I have been using it for years) which does the sorting for me. I'm looking forward to upgrading to Aperture some day, but I'll have to wait until I upgrade my computer first. My hard drive space is running low and I think I'm below the system requirements for Aperture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricco67 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 Well, I highly suggest you use an external drive as a backup. That's what saved my hide a few times. Initially, I was storing stuff on a server here at one time, though. it worked well for awhile until I had to figure out where to put stuff over multiple drives. Does Iphoto add keywords or anything on your work without degrading the actual image? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 I do use an external drive as a backup for my iPhoto library, which contains originals and modified photos, as well as all of the meta data associated with them (keywords, titles, ratings), and albums.iPhoto lets you organize your photos into events, albums, and smart albums (so for instance, I could have an album that automatically includes all photos that have Houston in the title or keyword field). Also, the latest version of iPhoto has some pretty decent editing features, so I only go to Photoshop when I'm doing something fairly major, or I want to use a plugin like Noise Ninja. I can crop, rotate, adjust saturation contrast, levels, lighten shadows and darken highlights in iPhoto, among other things.I think there's something similar for Windows from Google called Picassa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telwink Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 Ricco67: Are you familiar with GIMP? Back when I was on everything open-source, I used GIMP quite a bit for graphics processing. While I used it as a Swiss-Army knife of sorts in my IT toolkit and not really for straight-up photography, I'm pretty confident you can do most anything in GIMP that you can do in Photoshop, as far as photography is concerned. If you'z interested, http://www.gimp.org/windows/ As for organizing and whatnot, I used to use iPhoto, which made life very easy. Now that I'm primarily on a PC, I use Picasa to organize my photos, and have been pretty pleased with that, although I have yet to see how Picasa handles huge amounts of photos, which iPhoto did reasonably well. I'll probably know soon though, now that the humidity is going away some and the sky is getting clear As far as cameras go, I have a good friend who uses a $200 Kodak Easyshare, auto-everything, and he gets stunning photographs. I'm actually probably going to get a p&s Canon Powershot or something of the like, so I can have a camera on my belt for instances that its just not practical to have a honking DSLR and telephoto lens on my person. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highway6 Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 As far as cameras go, I have a good friend who uses a $200 Kodak Easyshare, auto-everything, and he gets stunning photographs. I'm actually probably going to get a p&s Canon Powershot or something of the like, so I can have a camera on my belt for instances that its just not practical to have a honking DSLR and telephoto lens on my person.I have a Canon SD450 Powershot as my secondary, easy to carry camera.After getting back from London a yr ago and comparing pictures with my girlfriends Panasonic p&s.. my camera felt a little bit lacking in any picture that had a moving subject.The optical stabilization system that is in most Panasonics is a great feature and something i wish my p&S had on that trip.... just food for thought as you camera shop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 I have a Panasonic FZ30 which looks like an SLR and has an image stabilizer and the equivalent of 400 mm zoom. It's a really nice camera but it's a bit old and the quality just doesn't compare with my SLR (Rebel XTi). I still use it when I need to take telephoto shots though, because I only have a 50 mm lens for my Rebel. The Canon 50 mm f/1.8 lens is incredibly cheap, I got it for $50 and the quality is awesome. Hopefully I will be able to buy a lens with a bigger zoom and IS for my Rebel some day. Only problem with SLR is it's bulky (with a telephoto lens) and expensive. When I am using my 50 mm lens on my Rebel the quality is much better than the Panasonic and it's actually smaller in this case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telwink Posted October 10, 2007 Author Share Posted October 10, 2007 When I am using my 50 mm lens on my Rebel the quality is much better than the Panasonic and it's actually smaller in this case.The Rebel is a phenomenal camera; absolutely excellent for the price. I still need to get the 50mm 1.8 for my 40D, as the lens is a must have given its speed and cost. I'm a n00b, so let me ask you this Jax; is the 50mm 1.8 good for scenery photography, like most of what you have on your flickr site, for example? What kind of techniques is the 50mm 1.8 good for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted October 10, 2007 Share Posted October 10, 2007 It's a good lens for just about anything, but keep in mind it's not a really wide angle lens, so it's not great for really large panoramic shots. Check out my flcikr page. Most of my recent photos were taken with my 50 mm lens. You can find out for sure by clicking the "More properties" link on the bottom right, and looking for the focal length.Also check out this group for lots of examples of what can be done with this lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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