Couple of shots I would like to share

[breutus]

The first 2 are from the top of the saint louis ARCH, They are HDR (kind still getting that down) But considering the windows up there are terribly scratched up I thought they were alright

The next few are some of my daughters, I have played around with in them photoshop to give some IMO neat highlights what do you guys think

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Nice HDR work and beautiful daughters. I like the effect but you distorted her right arm in #4!

 

[breutus]

LOL I didn't even notice! Thanks I'll fix it!

Yeah HDR is really neat to me but the majority of what I think will end up making a great HDR seems to do very little to nothing! so still trying to get it down

 

[kb27973]

Nice! In the first one of your daughter did you use the Lightroom adjustment brush to desaturate the background while leaving her in color?

Ken

 

[swjim]

Nice shots, I really like #4. One suggestion: the outdoor pictures of your daughter could really benefit from some fill flash.

 

[breutus]

Ken, Thanks A lot I have been very impressed with a lot of your shots. I did use lightroom, But very little with the brush, I mainly did it all from the main saturation section taking out specific coors and then just touching a few minor things up with the brush tool.

swjim, thank you as well Glad you liked them, #4 was one of my favs as well. I think your probably right about the fill flash I had never thought about using one in a bright area just to bring out those elements! Is there a specific setting I should be thinking about on the Canon rebel XTi

 

[swjim]

Do you have an external canon flash i.e. a 580 or 430EX? If so, I would start by turning High Speed Sync on the flash, this will allow the flash to work in situations beyond the camera's maximum sync speed which I believe is 1/200 on the XTi. You'll want this for shooting in the bright daylight conditions such as the ones in these photos.

If you don't have an external flash then you can set your camera to a low ISO and put it in TV mode at 1/200 and use the built in flash.

This shot was taken later in the day but you'll see the sun is behind my boy so his face would have been in the shadows if I hadn't used flash.

 

[kb27973]

Yeah breutus I'm very impressed with lightroom. There is a lot to the program for sure. I really like what the adjustment brush can do. Here are a couple of shots of a '53 Corvette an old girlfriend of mine was having restored. In the first one I used the adjustment brush to brush out the color and it did a great job. The second photo I just like.

swjim - nice use of the flash. Can hardly see it, face has a nice natural color instead of the washed out flash look. Did you turn the flash compensation down or bounce the light?

Ken

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29754959@N07/3491642235/" title="assort by kb27973, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3375/3491642235_0e04cbf81f_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="assort" /></a>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29754959@N07/3492469374/" title="assort-3 by kb27973, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3614/3492469374_6113f921b7_o.jpg" width="800" height="533" alt="assort-3" /></a>

 

[breutus]

swjim, That shot is definitely great use of a flash It is not washed at all! Very impressive I have to shot like this a bit, I only have the internal flash but have been wanting an external anyway so I maay go pick one up!

Ken! There is no doubt both those shots are amazing! The second one does just have some amazing appeal to it's simple framing.
So the first shot solely used the adjustment brush Amazing I have not been able to get that percise with it? Is there a way to mask edges like in photoshop or do you simply rely on the auto mask? or more impressively do you just do it by hand?! I have a cheaper tablet and don't think I could get quite that precise without a masking tool lol

Thanks again you guys Tomorrow I am gonna post some of my B&W and a few other HDR's to see what everyone thinks!

 

[swjim]

Ken, the car shots look great! I just upgraded to Lightroom 2.3 from 1.4 and haven't played with the adjustment brush yet. I'll need to give it a try.

Thanks for the compliments on the pic of my boy. I was thinking that I took this shot with the flash on camera but I just looked at a 100% crop of his eyes and I had it off camera and shot through an umbrella. I use pocket wizard II triggers which don't pass E-TTL info, so the flash was in manual mode, probably somewhere around 1/2 power.

This was taken last night with the flash on camera set to -2/3 FEC. I intentionally underexposed the background and used the flash to help bring her out more without being strong enough to cause harsh shadows. I'm not trying to hijack your thread, just trying to provide some examples of fill flash. Hope you don't mind.

 

[kb27973]

Thanks.

Yeah there is an automask feature that does pretty good. I think I did some of the work with the photo zoomed for some of the trickier spots and I think if you hit the 'O' key it will show you what you have done with a different color. Makes it really easy to see where you have missed or went over the line.

Ken

 

[breutus]

I don't Mind at all I'm learning from listening to you guys! I definitely like the shots effect with the underexposed background and the subject being so warm.

Thanks ken for the tip it makes me want to play around with it a bit But I have a feeling It would still be easier in photoshop since it has the selection tool to work only on the area you want to work on But who knows I'll have to play with it and see!