panoramic photo of halong bay

just another photo of beautiful halong bay, vietnam. you can click to see the full size of the image (you'll also probably have to maximize your browser window to see the entire image). can't remember how many shots i stitched to get this panoramic view, but it was all automated in photoshop, so no biggie.


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adobe photoshop will soon let you unblur photos

how cool is that?

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simple doesn't mean easy

lol a friend told me that he didn't understand a single thing that i wrote with the photo design thingy, so here's another after/before comparison (a simple-looking one this time) and i won't even bother explaining it - enough to say that it was just as complicated to do, masking and all.

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experiment in photo design (last part)

(continued from previous entry)
this is the finished product of this experiment, and for comparison, here is the original:



am not sure if i achieved anything in the final version, but i sure learned a lot.

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experiment in photo design (part 3)

(continued from previous entry)
details. after seeing that the general light composition is as i wanted it, i added them back in, still proportional to the lighting designed. i started with the couple farthest to the sitting girl and their immediate surrounding, and made sure i didn't add more than 30% of the details of the originally cleaned up file. the idea was to create a diagonal visual link between the girl and the heart painting without letting the couple distract this link even tho they're positioned along this link.



next was adding details to the middle couple - i decided this was enough detail for the entire background so i added it to the rest of the image except for the first couple. i know there isn't a very pronounced difference, especially at this size of the photo, but it's there. i also added a general brightness to the whole thing as it was getting a bit too gloomy.



next was the couple closest to the camera - making sure to make them not too dark as to grab too much focus on them. i then added details to the girls, a little bit more clean-up (removed throw pillows behind the sitting girl, on the far couch), adjusted levels, then the finished product.

(to be continued)


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experiment in photo design (part 2)

(continued from previous entry)
fun part starts with a blank canvas. i added a simple circular gradient as a lighting guide, roughly following the thirds rule, to better bring attention to the main subject (the girl sitting by herself)



i then added partial luminosity of the cleaned up image in amounts following the lighting guide (20% of the couple closest to the subject, 35% of the middle couple, 50% of foreground couple, etc.)



a slight addition of the colors to check that they don't radically change the desired lighting.

(to be continued)


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experiment in photo design (part 1)

here's a bit of an experiment, brought on by a hastily taken photo - my excuse being that it was taken in a photo event where one is given about 15 minutes to compose, light and execute the photo. i guess you can say it's more a photo rescue job than anything, but i thought, what if i take it a bit further? after all by doing an experiment - you achieve something just by going thru the process - so no effort lost.

what i wanted to do was to see what it would be like if you approach a photo like you would a painting, i.e. do an additive process thereby ensuring control over the elements that go in the photo and the lighting relationships between them.



as per usual, i began by doing my typical clean-up edit. corrected perspective, toned it so that colors are not all over the place, replaced copyrighted content (painting on the wall), removed distracting elements (bit of balcony, upper right corner, and sloping window frame on the other side), etc.



right after "correcting" (there was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't the perspective i wanted) the perspective tho, and before cleaning up, i had to do the masking. it's just one of those things that one has to do when working extensively on a photo. better have it done with as early on as possible to make full use of it. everything else after masking is child's play.

(to be continued)

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classic english landscape

© Joselito Briones

this picture's taken in dove dale. i thought i'd try to make it look like an old english painting.


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Gau in Bakewell

© Joselito Briones

This photo of Gau was taken in Bakewell in front of the snotty cafe.


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Wil at Harthill Hall

© Joselito Briones

This is one of the NUMEROUS photos I took of Wil and everyone else who joined the gathering at Harthill Hall. It would be fun to put it side by side with the original photo and play "spot the difference". haha!


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white belt tip - color adjustment

© Joselito Briones

In the latest issue of "Contact Sheet", the newsletter for iStockphoto contributors, a short tip/article I submitted was used:



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Color Adjustment
By: attator

Adjusting the colors of an image also changes its actual or perceived luminosity. If it's only the image's color that needs adjusting, this can be done without touching the luminosity (contrast, brightness) by instructing the software to limit the adjustment only to colors. RAW format processors, for example, usually have an option to apply noise reduction only to colors, thereby instantly solving the problem of chroma noise while preserving the texture of the image. In Photoshop, it's also easy enough to duplicate the main layer and assigning the new layer as "color" and do all kinds of color shifts and adjustments to this color layer. Still in Photoshop, just before saving the file in jpeg format, while still in the color layer, a simple localized gradual desaturation can be applied by running repeatedly (as many times as required) an action that goes:

* select - color range - out of gamut (to adjust only colors that are out of bounds, leaving the rest in their full colorful glory)
* select - modify - expand - a few pixels / select - modify - feather - a few pixels (to avoid banding)
* modify - image - desaturate - a few levels down

Repeat as necessary.


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Photo above was taken in Miami on a recent trip, I used the above process to push it to maximum saturation without going out of gamut.

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