<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
	<title>LightningPaul - photoblog</title>
	<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com" />
	<link rel="self" href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/atom.xml" />
	<author>
		<name>Paul Pladijs</name>
	</author>
	<id>http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/</id>
	<generator>RSS LiveUpdate</generator>
	<updated>2009-01-08T22:58:34Z</updated>
	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Abandoned - Red Door and Pipe
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/203688.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				An old abandoned factory build with typical red bricks. It's waiting for a new destination. In the meantime it got captured by me. TECH-INFO: using a tripod I shot 7 JPGs with each a stop difference. I first used DxO Optics Pro to correct lens distortion and softness. Then I merged them into a HDR file and tone mapped it with Photomatrix Pro. Afterwards I processed it in Photoshop. A contrast boost using curves and an enhancement of the reds and the whites using the selective color tool. The vibrancy is pushed to the max but the saturation is lowered a lot. The pavement is separately processed: to contrast more with the red bricks I added some blue tones using the channel mixer, curves and selective color tool. Next I selected the big pipe at the right plus the red door to enhance its contrast using an overlay layer. This makes the bright tones lighter and dark ones more black. The effect is very cool; the door really stands out. I discovered it by coincidence . At end I added a small vignette all around the border of the image. Finally it is cropped with a 1/2 ratio. I'm very happy with the processing. It gives the red brick building a great dramatic touch.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-08T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:9ab46c05d9f8db970e3f64c7177a7457</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Empty Bottle
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200096.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				Bottle seen and shot in a museum. I totally forgot it's purpose, I just know that it might be pretty old. Anyone any ideas what it was exactly? TECH-INFO: I have hold my camera to the museum glass, which was between me and the object you see, to avoid shaking and glass reflections. As usual: one RAW file converted into multiple exposures in DxO Optics Pro. Then I merged them into a HDR file, tone mapped it to a JPG. Afterwards I boosted the contrast using curves, did a little bit of burning and dodging to reveal better certain parts and finally added some vignetting in the corners.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:39aacc9ba8903dec156254ec7b52460f</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Toddler happy after taking Fuel
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/198684.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				This little guy was very satisfied after taking some imaginary petrol. TECH-INFO: shot just one JPG. The lighting was very poor. Up to ISO560 my camera produces not too much noise. I also used my 50mm f/1.4 prime which focuses still well on f/1.6. On f/1.4 I get too many misses. I used DxO Optics Pro to adjust and pump up lighting a bit.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:392ba0a2b05219253351bec778d7cb8d</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Venetian Space Man
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200544.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				This is an old image, taken four years ago on an underground space alien party of a good friend in Brussels, Belgium. I suppose this is one of the guests who came from Venice but wanted to stay incognito. Lots of twiddling has been done on this image but I still like the result a lot. TECH-INFO: I have no idea what kind of twiddles I did on this one, except I remember it was done in Jasc Paint Shop Pro, I guess version 7. Probably many of you remember this fine Photoshop competitor. Last week I rediscovered this image. To finish it I only did some contrast boost (using curves), used the filter glow diffusion (but only a very slight amount which made the Venetian mask a bit brighter) and a crop with ratio 11/10. This image was shot with my first (digital) camera, a Minolta F100. The 35mm equivalence of the focal length is 107mm.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-05T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:0d28ba4ef5d00d5fb3f5d0026f81699d</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Diagonal Hedgerows
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/198645.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				In front of the castle in the forest Tillegem in Brugge you have nice hedges having square forms. This image looks much more spectacular as a thumbnail so may I advise you to click the archive link :-) TECH-INFO: First I screwed around in DxO Optics Pro and apparently also in Photomatrix to get this effect. I'm sorry but I totally forgot what I did exactly. Afterwards I used the healing brush tool in Photoshop Elements to clean all the garbage and small but extremely disturbing little stones and other dirt, including some pieces of rotten mushrooms. This tool is very convenient. If you experiment with it can do all sort of neat things. Sometimes it clones the surroundings, like the grass and the hedge, very well. I must say: the healing brush is an amazing piece of technology.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-04T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:274cd4e6db37c515fe7cc8dc019ae8ab</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Snow Flowers
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200536.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				Macro shot of dried flower filled with snow a big bunch of crystals . TECH-INFO: Some dodging and burning done. The borders are darkened, the flower is a bit brighter. Slight contrast enhancement using the curves. The 35mm equivalence is 114mm for the focal length. News: yesterday I got a sad email that JPG Magazine stop on the 5th of January. Despites I didn't contribute so much, I really liked to browse it because there were so many cool pictures to see. See here to read the news.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-03T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:7b3f7db70ca4bbd62e241710fd10872c</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Carnaval Zeebrugge 2007 - Two Crazy Faces
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/199037.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				Lots of fun for everyone in 2009 A close up of the same guys as in this image posted two weeks ago. They were incredible! I hope to see them back in February this year. TECH-INFO: as many of my images, a single JPG run through DxO for lens corrections and fill light, besides that no changes at all.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-02T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:b73b559e607c2d6f710827e1d122f08f</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Surfing Ice Man
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200550.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				Happy New Year 2009 All the best Wishes for You and your Family! This one is also shot at the same ice sculpture festival as in this and this and this image. They really made some fantastic things. TECH-INFO: made with my Minolta F100. The 35mm equivalent focal length is 38mm. I took this image several years ago. I even printed it in big format, where you clearly see the shape of the pixels because it has only 4 mega pixels. Two weeks ago I decided to improve and clean up the image in Photoshop. In the background there was a bunch of very visible and even disturbing garbage laying around, and a big blue plastic foil hanging behind the ball with pins in the right top corner. Using the burn tool I darkened them a lot. You can still see some details behind the surfer. In the original picture there were only a few background stars hanging in the top left corner. I cloned them to fully decorate the dark background. Finally I slightly enhanced the contrast a bit using curves.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2009-01-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:4d08827caf8acfb9c7f3bdc7339d4790</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Toilet Door Handle
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/199384.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				The last gate to 2009 :-) I noticed this intriguing but fantastic rusty object while sitting on the toilet of an older house. Enjoy the close look of this funny door handle. TECH-INFO: I wanted to capture the same close-up feeling as I had. To get this perspective I had to use my fish eye lens which focuses as close as 14 cm. There was only a bulb to light the room. Using the white walls (not visible on the image) I calibrated my white balance. Those walls nicely diffuse the small light source. Due to the little amount of light I had to set my ISO rather high. I managed to setup my tripod in this small room. Finally I used a cable release to minimize camera shake. Five JPG shots with a stop difference were made. The middle exposure time is 6 seconds. I merged them into Photomatrix to a HDR image and tone mapped it back to a JPG which reveals all the details and texture. Finally I boosted the contrast and added a big vignette in Photoshop Elements. As you can see in the EXIF info, the aperture is f/8.0, it is an extremely wide angle of 10.0mm and the DOF is still very limited. This prooves that not everything in an image is automatically sharp when using wide angle lenses.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2008-12-31T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:d544d5024c1186de17715b4794caf70f</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Ice Sculpture Skull
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200551.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				Shot at the same ice sculpture festival as in this and this image. It's really amazing what they all can make in ice. TECH-INFO: 107 mm is the 35mm equivalent focal length. I made some improvements using adjustment layers. The background is darkened. The skull got a contrast boost using curves. I used dodging and burning techniques to give the image a bit more depth: the "eyes" and "nose" are a bit darker, some parts of the cheeks, forehead and the thumb are made slightly brighter. I used the built-in flash of the camera.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2008-12-30T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:7654c85585384dc722f66fbe3514c365</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Metallic Houses
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200561.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				In Middelburg, Walcheren in Holland you a have little art monument standing on the market in the center. Fantastic to see. They look like big houses but in fact they are only a few centimeters tall. I'm happy with this shot, it's even hanging in my office. TECH-INFO: shot with my Minolta F100 a few years ago. The 35mm equivalent of the focal length is 114mm. I don't remember if I used the macro mode. In Photoshop I enhanced the contrast a bit and removed a bunch of little disturbing spots and highlights with the spot healing tool. Finally I added a small vignette. The version hanging in my office is without these improvements.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2008-12-29T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:017fb6c33059e3319d52a2df6613e55a</id>
	</entry>

	<entry>
		<title>
			<![CDATA[
				Topiaires Park Durbuy, Little Dogs
			]]>
		</title>
		<link href="http://lightningpaul.shutterchance.com/photoblog/200757.htm" />
		<summary>
			<![CDATA[
				More animals of the Topiaires park in Durbuy. If you like this one, see here for more. These are sculpted box trees cut in amazing shapes. TECH-INFO: standard processing in DxO Optics Pro for lens corrections, lighting and cropping.
			]]>
		</summary>
		<updated>2008-12-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
		<id>urn:uuid:9576c3820fc1288f93b221b1355ab15a</id>
	</entry>

</feed>
