Collage

This here is my collage, and in case you cant tell its an apple that has a strawberry inside falling into a pond! This was a fairly complicated project because i had to isolate the strawberry from its background also the apple from its background, next i brought them into the same document. After bringing them into the same document i then used layer masking and various blending filters to combine the two into one, but the tricky part was to get the slice to look correct, this took some more layer masks and even more blending along with the rotation of the berry image. After bringing those all together merged those layers, then brought them into the pond scene. now in the pond scene i had to create a reflection of the berry and i did this by copying the apple/berry layer then going into transform and flipping it vertically, i then added a gradiant to the reflection, then i went into image free transform and clicked "skew perspective" i then manipulated it to look like it was almost flat on the water. Then I put a drop shadow on the apple/berry that was falling, after doing that i had to add a motion blur onto both the reflection and the falling layers. On the Reflection layer i kew it had to be distorted and smaller than the one on the falling Apple/Berry due to the water. After everything here is the finished product! it is my firs manipulation of fruit and i feel with some more practice i could get fairly good at it, and when i say manipulating i mean putting one fruit into the other.

Troubles uploading!

I had some trouble uploading some work yesterday, but i will be trying again today and hopefully can figure out what was wrong!
Pleas bear with me.

what a real HDR photo looks like

Here is a HDR image done by a professional who knows what they are doing, notice all the fine detail you get due to the 3 differnt exposures, that is why HDR is so popular is because you are able to capture the full spectrum of color and shading, you can get the blue of the sky while captureing shat is in the shadows without over or under exposure in one or the other. I believe HDR photography is a really good way to capute landscapes and buildings with high contrast backdrops. these images will advance as will the programs that produce them, they already have in the last year or so that i have been fallowing HDR, the programs have changed and there are photoshop plugins you can get to do the same as the programs, but most are pretty costly, so for now i will stick to my watermarked Photomatrix software and use it to its full.

would you look at that!

Well here is a test HDR (high Dynamic Range) photo its pretty good for my first one i think. some of you are probably asking yourselves what the f@$k is HDR, well Hdr is a picture taken on a digital camerea at three different exposures this is also called bracketing, you are then able to put these bracketed images into one using software programs, there are many out there that do HDR i used photomartix for mine, they offer a free version that is fully functional the only drawback is a watermark which if you look at my picture it has one on it. HDR has become really popular and they actually make digital point and shoot cameras with built in HDR, dont ask me how it works because that will be another post. well for now i go back into my lab to create some more images for you all to view.

Reflections upon glass

This picture is as some people have put it serene and pure, it is a reflection of trees on water, i took this picture while hiking at the mendenhall glacier in Juneau, Ak which is my home town. the day was beautiful and i was taking alot of photos then i thought of some reflection photos i have seen in magazines and online, i thought of how cool they looked and how if you are able to get a good reflection you can capture a scene that would otherwise go unnoticed by many. I have also been looking at HDR photography which is the process of combining three exposures of the same picture into one and adjust some attributes and get a magnificent picture capturing the high and low lights and the mid tones as well. i should be posting some of those up soon. but until then... ENJOY!

European Parliament

this photo really puts into perspective how small we are compared to the big buisness and gives you that feeling of being surrounded by it and having "Big Brother" watching your every move. It also shows the some really good creativity in which they were able to create a looming effect and have the building seem to engulf everything. This photo can be found on worth1000.com

This is a cool website i found last year while in a digital imaging class it has tutorials and photoshop contests along with galleries of past contests and just photoshop projects individuals have submitted.

Its official!

This is the official blog of John Carlson for DMF1 at SOU!!