Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic - Does this make me an official photography addict?

RosaMystica7 · Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 267 Location: New York

I thought it was bad when I went everywhere and thought "oh that would make a good picture!" Then I thought it was bad when I started carrying my camera everywhere with me to solve that problem. Well, today it's been taken to a new level. I saw a pretty sunset while I was driving and pulled over to take a picture of it.

If I could have gotten up to a higher place and away from buildings this would've been a beautiful shot. I didn't mess with the contrast because it took away from the colors in the sunset. I'm actually really disappointed, the location just stunk, and I knew by the time I had gotten to a better area the sunset would've been too far down for it to be pretty.

But anyway. Does this make me an official member of the photography addict club?

MHD · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 6:42 pm

Yes...
For me it was when I, like you, started to take my camera everywhere...

No I know its getting worse... as I have started taking camera + tripod everywhere!

RosaMystica7 · Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 267 Location: New York

If I had the money I'd buy a tripod... if that counts...

StuartE · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 7:41 pm

Tripod most definitely counts - I wouldn't be without one, even if every lens I had was f/1.8 AND image stabilised... :-)

That's not too bad a sunset - if you've got a foreground that's not photogenic, make it a silhouette - even those buildings don't look too bad that way:

Cheers,
Stuart

RosaMystica7 · Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 267 Location: New York

....ooooooooooooooooh. StuartE I LIKE that. How'd you do that, just outline and fill with black the whole foreground? There's much less noise at 100%, I think, I have to look at it closer... I didn't really pay much attention because I didn't think I could do much with it. Do you think that's actually submit-able?

JTeffects · Joined: 02 Dec 2004 Posts: 294

no, whats really really bad on soooo many levals is when you dont stop the car to take the picture.....

StuartE · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:12 pm

It's a little more complex than just an outline, mainly because I could see how to do it, fast... make a couple of extra layers, shift the levels on one to make all of the buildings go to a blacked out silhoutte (you get a couple of little non black areas, don't worry yet) and close layers, you now have a nice black outline, but the sunset is way too saturated from the shift to the blacks & contrast - but you can select the blacks with the magic wand, because they're the only blacks - drag that layer under the other, so you show the 'normal' version, then just click on the 'mask layer' icon at the bottom of the layer pallette, and the sky will stay and the buildings will vanish, showing the black below... paint with a black brush over any stray non black areas in the silhoutte, pump the levels and saturation a little in the sunset on the top layer, and there you go... normal noise and sharpening, etc, can be done on a composite layer on top of the others (make a new layer, press CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, E to make a flattened layer on top)

Cheers,
Stuart

flutterby · Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 69 Location: easthampton, ma

I'm not a fan of that particular photo, but I do like the idea and technique! It's looks a bit unnatural in this case, to me.

Hi everybody!
I'm back!
:-)

opsdog · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 156 Location: Phoenix, AZ

My tripod fits perfectly in the tool box in the bed of my truck :-)