Hummingbirds

Have seen some really good photographs of Hummingbirds taken by my classmates in the last few days.

That reminded me of my chance encounter with a pair of Hummingbirds at one of those picnic tables on top of a vista point at Palm Springs last year.

Now that yours truly has Photoshop, found that picture and edited it to my hearts content..

Here is my contribution to the Hummingbird collection.

It is a pity that we cut down the honeysuckle plant in our backyard as part of the construction. Need to go buy one and plant it just to get the birds to visit our house again...

or at least put a feeder in the backyard!


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A little cheer

Have not had this kind of allergies in the last ten years. Slept through the entire day. Came out feeling a lot better.

The kids came home and saw my screensaver, which had the Tulips.

Me : Do you guys like it?

Little One : Not really!

Jr. : Not really!

Me : Why? I thought it is a great shot!

Jr.: The storm clouds in the back are scary.

Me : It was taken near Seattle and it was raining when we went there. You can see the water drops on all the tulips, can't you?

LO : Now that you have photoshop, can't you make the sky brighter or something?


Me : LOL! Sure we can. Was using Photoshop to get the features in the clouds out. Now I will go remove the features and make it brighter for you..

So, the first thing after they went to bed..

Old Photo..

New Photo..

Think Seattle could use a perpetual Cloud brightening plugin on Photoshop, at least for kids who are born and raised here in Silicon Valley!


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Uvas Canyon

We visited Uvas Canyon State Park near Morgan Hill last Sunday with the Cousins. Was in two minds to go on Sunday as there was an early flight to catch on Monday morning, but went anyways.

We walked around for 5+ hours through the park and covered multiple waterfalls and walked along creeks. It was a very pleasant day and we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon enjoying nature.

This was my first trip with the Canon 5D Mark II with the L series lens and most importantly the Manfrotto tripod.

The pictures have improved by leaps and bounds compared to the old broken tripod and the 400D + sigma lens combination. Not that those were bad photographs but yours truly has learned a lot of tricks since that trip two years ago..

Here are a few pictures.. (the second and fourth Images are HDR composites of 5 images taken at -2.0, -1.0, 0, +1 and +2 Exposures respectively and then tone adjusted in Photoshop)

Seriously thinking of getting a photo site..

Any suggestions?

A trip to Sausalito

Last weekend we decided to drive to Sausalito, thanks to NPR. Apparently the storm had moved over the bay area and it was supposed to be an extremely good visibility day to see the golden gate bridge and also the road down to Sausalito was going to be kept open over the weekend.

So off we drove and had a great time. Got to take some pictures of the bridge, then the kids spent two hours at the Kids discovery museum and we ended up driving around the cute downtown in Sausalito and had some great food at a Nepalese restaurant called "Taste of the Himalayas"

It was an afternoon well spent with something for everyone in the family!

A few photographs from the trip.

Separate posts on the museum trip and tiffin experience later...


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Pu'ahi crater

Before..

After edits

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First Portrait touchup attempt

After going through many a Photoshop video tutorial on how to make any woman look like Aishwarya Rai, decided to use those techniques to make my Angels look their best.

Wishing one and all a belated Tamil New Years day!

We had some nice food today (all done by San with no help from me) and after going through what has been a series of unfortunate events between the little one's cold and fever and my intestinal infection, went for Yoga after almost two weeks!

Was very weak but still managed to stay put the 90 minutes and do all the poses and came home to eat some good food without having to think of side effects or consequences. It has been a curd rice, bread, milk and gatorade routine for two weeks. Now that is behind us.. back to photoshop!

Here is the yummy vadai that San made in all its glory!

The girls were dressed up today to celebrate New year and clicked a snap. Then decided to play with it for more than an hour..

Raw Image from Camera..

After almost an hour of playing with it..

remove dark circles under eyes - Check
smooth skin tones - Check
whiten teeth - check
sharpen eyes - check
make jewels sparkle - check
eyebrows - check
hair lighting - check
background - double check!

Needless to say, more practice is required to perfect portrait touching up. For a first attempt happy to just be able to transform images without making it look way too artificial.

The Tamil New year in this house has started on a good note.. Wishing everyone good health and prosperity in the year ahead

இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்!


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Waterfalls

Another shot with the clouds coming out and the water showing all the detail..

Before PS

After PS

Portraits are not so easy to adjust unless the original lighting setup was perfect. Having a busy week with a stomach bug, a conference and an irritated family thanks to the little one refusing food...

Portraits will have to wait till the weekend!

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More from the tide pools..

Double processed to bring out the glow!


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Progression..

First two days of playing with Landscapes... clouds, sky, mountains, water etc..

Then on the way to preparing for Portraits a brief stop with some flora and fauna.

Presenting, the dragonfly!

Feedback to improve these photos are welcome.

Have now learned to write "actions" which are Photoshop Macros and the process is definitely speeding up.


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Before and After..

Before..

(actual shot from Hawaii trip converted from CR2 to JPG - linked in original post)

After..

Every detail shown in picture was actually there in the original photo, just not visible. When I took the picture remember the sky being so amazing and felt that I had done something wrong after downloading the pictures. Now realize what was wrong. This changes my strategy for taking pictures as well. At the risk of not getting a bright photo, going to go for a slightly over exposed image which captures details in the dark or better still start taking bracketed photos as a default when going for landscapes!

Now it takes me 15 minutes to fix pictures where clouds and rocks had no detail.

Next step, learn how to fix portraits of the kids and my VC.. aka Sangeetha!

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Amazing

I am like a kid in Grand Sweets and Snacks (not exactly a candy store person)...

Look at this image from the tide pool visit, which was not a bad shot considering the sun was in the picture!

Now look at this after Photoshopping!

Can get the detail in the sky and the sea weed and kelp on the floor. Can even bring out detail on the family in the center.

Hats off to these guys who came up with an image processing software with so many options.


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Shopping spree

Photoshopping spree that is..

Today a good 3 hours was spent watching an intro to Photoshop DVD followed by editing an old image from the Hawaii trip.

Even managed to create a nice logo with Tamil Letters and English to sign off images.

The original image had too much washout. You either got the little one and no clouds or great clouds and her silhouette.

Now who says you can't have your kid and the clouds too?

This is a start. At places it looks a little artificial, but will improve with practice.

The goal?

Edit at least one photo a week
Watch at least one 5 minute tutorial video every night before going to bed and
practice what was learned the previous night the next evening for 5 minutes

Have to see how it goes over time


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The photoshop allure

After using freeware for almost 16 years to edit images, finally got Photoshop CS5, thanks to a friend who works at Adobe!

In the last 24 hours have been watching online videos to grasp some basics of image editing.

Jr. , my all time favorite model posed for a sample picture to start the editing process.

It is a simple image of her in front of our living room wall, but gives enough material to practice a few tutorials ..

The software is amazing if you can find things in the myriad menus embedded in every nook!

For now learned to do basic image edits, convert an image to black and white, selectively colorize areas of a picture, create a border, add a copyright symbol into the signature (which took the longest time to figure out) and save the picture to custom specifications!

This software is probably going to keep me on a steep learning curve for a year or more!

Well, never too late to play with pictures at another level..


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