I did have great time shooting this little guy.  For some reason he just wanted to chill out on the rock and let me photograph him, so I wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity.  I put the 105 to work shooting away and got a lot of keepers from this guy, but what I like the most was when I was looking at the images in post an blew up this image to 100%.  The result of that is below.

This is a cropped shot at 100% of the image above, with nothing done to it in post.  I could not believe how sharp this lens is, and might I add this was handheld as well.  That’s right folks, no tripods here spooking the little guy away, just me the camera and the VR all working together to make a fun shot.

Captured with D700 105f2.8 Micro on Lexar digital film

First up was some Indian Paintbrush the reds were popping.

Some Purple Lupine

And I was even abel to catch a little wildlife.  Here I caught this western fence lizard sunbathing on a rock.  There is another post to follow on this little guy.

Captured with Nikon D700 105f2.8 on Lexar digital film

So this is a shot back from when I was in New Mexico in January that never made it onto the blog back then.  But since I am getting ready to head that way again on my way to my buddy Jeff Lynch’s Texas Landscape Safari next week, I decided to go back through some images to see if there were places I wanted to go revisit.  I found this image in the archives and realized that I had done nothing with it at this point.  So I started playing around and decided on a solution to make a neat image.

So first off I decided to start this out as a 1 shot HDR editing the image in Photomatix 3.1, and got what you see below:

So it is overdriven and has some funky halos and blues going on not to mention a TON of noise that got introduced in the process.  So I went from here, convert the layer into a Smart Object and started the real work.

Step 1 was to drop the image in Nik’s Dfine 2.0 to axe the noise from the image.

Step 2 was to go into Nik’s Silver Efex Pro and finish the image how I wanted.  Up top is the final result.

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

I have added a link in the Educational Section on the left entitled PSU CS5 that will take you right to the site.

Enjoy

So I promised something was going to be announced on the site… and yes I know you all know that Sharpen Pro 3.0 has been out for a while.  However, you may not have known that I was working on an addendum chapter for the book that discusses some ways to use SHP 3.0.  And now you can download it FREE from Wiley right here.  The chapter covers the basics of SHP 3.0 and was written with the fact that the user interface is the same as the other great programs from Nik so I cut out that part and added a lesson on using Display sharpening for all of us bloggers out on the web.

Also, just as another goody for all the readers out there in case you didn’t know Nik Software has a site up so that you can download styles for Silver Efex Pro 1.0.  If you didn’t know it existed, now you do.  You can head over there by clicking this link.  There are a lot a great styles on there.
Enjoy…

Well I got a lot of emails asking me about the Pinhole effect I showed in the blog from the announcement of Silver Efex Pro. Some folks asked what the before image looked like and how I did it. So to answer 2 questions at once I will go this route. So below is the original image.

And how I got there? Well that is in the book, but as a special thanks if you right click on the link below and choose “Save Link As” (Firefox) or “Save Target As” (IE) you can download the Silver Efex Style and import it into your own Silver Efex program and give it a go!! Enjoy

Pinhole Effect

WOW!!!, if RC and Corey weren’t cool already with that amazing iTouch contest this week the guys shot me a plug for the new book on Layers . If you have not ever had the pleasure to meet RC and Corey then come to a Photoshop World event. These guys are amazing and just spending time in a single class with either of them, will send you soaring by leaps and bounds in your knowledge of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and the list keeps going. So check them out when you get a chance, I promise you will have a great time.

Well here it is. In case you haven’t seen it, this is the cover to the upcoming book. Right now I have found out that it is on Pre-order already over at Amazon.com . I think everyone is going to be very pleased with the book (I know I am). While I did talk about a lot of things in the book including what I am about to write I just wanted to take a second and thank a lot of people who made this all possible.

First up my amazing wife and daughter who stood by me on many a late night while I was typing madly. Without them pushing me forward everyday I know that this would never have gotten it done.

Next my mentor and great friend Moose Peterson . Moose believed in me and believed I could be the one to get this book out there to share with the world. He has pushed me every step of the way since the first day I met him coming up on 2 years ago in August. He has shown me what the true joy of photography is and the only way I know how to repay him is to keep pushing the boundaries of photography and take the lessons he has taught me and pass them on to the next person who is eager to learn. A lot of what you see in this book was inspired by him and the lessons he taught me.

To my good friend Joe McNally who’s mastery of light inspired me to see if I could create light were there was none and tell a story. He has been a guide through many a time and his words of wisdom to me (including the quotes from Monty Python) have helped inspire me.

To Joe Sliger "The Adobe Master" you have sparked a lot of creativity both behind the camera and at the computer. I say without hesitation, some of the effects in the book are inspired by you and your amazing eye for detail. Thank you for being a great friend.

To my friends over at Nik Software , without those guys I would have no software to write about. Especially Sean and Josh who took the time to sit down and go through every aspect of every program with me (I owe you guys).

The list goes on and on: My great friends Brad , Laurie , Kevin D. , Kevin M. , Jeff, and Misty …

However, I would especially would like to extend a personal thanks to the amazing folks who I have got to meet at DLWS and Basecamp events. This book is for you and to help spark your imagination I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Hey Everyone,

If you haven’t heard the news, my good friends RC and Corey over at Layers Magazine are having a contest right now that if you’re the lucky winner you can score a brand new 16GB iTouch. Check out the link here for details. The guys did 2 podcasts with cool tips and tutorials for the new iPhone release so make sure you check out the podcasts .