ProShow Producer Student Shows!

Ok you guys. Here they are! Follow this link to go to the slideshows and type in

LightPhotoWorkshop as the member.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/memberbrowsego.html

This weekend was great! We collected a few of the slideshows that were created and posted them to the link above. I have about two more coming but I think it will be pretty obvious as to which slideshow was mine. Amanda Butler won a copy of ProShow Producer for having the best slide show and David Jesus won a copy of ProShow for answering the quiz correctly! Good job both of you!

I learned quite a bit but I can say that I may need another course for some of these more advanced transitions and add-ins that Amanda was picking up with ease. The uploading and sharing capabilities of the program is also very easy to use and the quality of the images and sound is incredible. Jon Canfield did an expert job at teaching us the ins and outs of the program so that each of us successfully came away with a working slideshow (or 2) and the knowledge to apply it to our photography when we work on our own.

Thank you Jon! I wish you nothing but the best. We cannot wait to see what we have in store with you in the future...

Thank you Photodex for the generous sponsorship for us and our students!

On another note...if you are interested in learning retouching portraits...I am going to be teaching our MNL (Monday Night Light) tomorrow night at 6:30PM PDT. You do need to subscribe for the month (only $20) and you get 4 consecutive sessions with the subscription. Usually Hal does the MNL but since he will be photographing the Palouse a bit more with his new found friends up in Spokane I will have the honor to show you what I like to teach!

Hope to see you all here soon!

Victoria

Long Day but Great Fun

Finishing up a long day here in Spokane. Started around 8 AM at the lecture venue. Fielded questions and configured cameras for HDR shooting until around 9. Finished up our HDR/Photomatix Pro discussion about noon and started Lightroom at 1. Four hours later and it was all over. At least the formal lecture, questions for another hour and then packed up the SX6 and HP.

Thanks to Otto and Barbara for a great venue and event. Thank you to the lecture attendees. Your enthusiasm and questions made teaching here an absolute pleasure.

Up early tomorrow to enjoy one of Otto's legendary Palouse photo tours. We have 203 miles to go and the trip should be around 13 hours. I will try and get some shots up tomorrow evening. No guarantees though as the day will be very long.

The attached shot is the Spokane Convention Center at sunset this evening. Three hand held shots with the Canon 5D Mk II. I converted the RAW files to TIFF (no develop adjustments in LR, tone curve set to linear, and no input sharpening,) merged to HDR with Photomatix Pro and then processed two separate times. I saved the individual processed files and then stacked them in Photoshop CS4. Played with blend modes a little and then added four Curves adjustment layers to modify the image a bit. I purposely kept the saturation high as I liked the effect with the cool blues and warm golds of sunset.

As always, I did the preliminary processing here on the laptop and as you know there is no way to do accurate color nor tone on the laptop screen. Hopefully, it is close when I return home next week. I am also not a fan of JPEG conversion for blog posting. There I said it.

In Progress

The attached file is a work in progress. Shot the initial source files (3 exposures shot at 0, -2, +2 in Manual mode with my 5D Mk II.) Imported to LR and then exported to Photomatix Pro 3.1.3. Quick tone mapping with the details enhancer for a non realistic, over saturated, and 3D feel. Back to LR for post processing and made some quick Develop module adjustments. Not sure where I will ultimately take this one. I like it tonight so we'll see if it still deserves some attention tomorrow.

Cheers!

Hal

Spokane HDR Course

Spokane, WA at Sunset. 12 shot HDR, Stitched Pano

Just returned to the hotel after a 3.5 hour session teaching high dynamic range (HDR.) Great crowd from around the northwest gathered in Spokane to learn about HDR and Lightroom. We are also doing some tours around the Palouse on Sunday to practice.


The attached shot is a 12 shot HDR panorama. I kind of broke the rules on this one as I shot the every exposure hand held. There are four panorama components and each component had three different exposures blended together. I normally blend my different exposures together first and then create the panorama from the tone mapped files.


The only rub is working on my laptop with no accurate color nor tonal management. Will fix any issues when I get back to my monitors at the lab.

Photoshop Fun

Rudolf Budginas

Just a little Photoshop fun!
Rudolf is an incredible piano player going on a U.S. tour this fall. They need a poster for his flyers. I've helped his tour manager before with Photoshop tutoring, but she wants something elaborate and fun. Well....what do you guys think? Hal made the smoke and flame for me to import into the image. I bet if you ask really nicely, Hal will explain how to make the smoke!I had to de-saturate the entire photo a bit and give it a huge boost in contrast with a curves adjustment layer. I superimposed the piano strings on the wall for a nice wallpaper look. Lots of masking! A little bit of the Fay Sirkis technique on his eyes, but not enough to make him look like a doll...I need to fix up the bubbles a bit, but the smoke and lighting the stove I think is turning out great. Not quite done and looking for client direction. If anybody has thoughts on this let me know! Here is his website if you're interested... http://www.rudolfpiano.com/Thanks everyone for reading!Victoria

In San Jose. Beautiful day to fly to Spokane.

No Dogs Were Harmed During This Shoot!

Victoria recently came across this series from last fall's Best of Lepp Institute course.

Traumatic until we saw the dog was ok and then H-I-larious. Needless to say the boxer was a little hesitant on his subsequent attempts.

Digital Seduction

As we transitioned from Lepp to LIGHT, we thought it was important to show that we are still wildlife, nature, landscape, and macro but have grown to encompass all areas of photography including studio, figure, commercial, wedding, and more.

Bottom line...

LIGHT = Everything Photographic!

A New Blog for a New Brand

Welcome to the first post! LIGHT Photographic Workshops (formerly The Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging) is up and running.

Thanks for visiting and there will be plenty more to come!

Cheers!

Hal