It’s remarkable what you can accomplish with textures, HDR, and a child’s toy dinosaur! The dinosaur was captured using natural light and processed into an HDR using Photomatix Pro. The textures are part of my Texture Labs Collections. Let your imagination roar today! By the way, if you plan to purchase Photomatix Pro, you’re entitled [...]
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Filter Forge is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite pieces of software for reproducing natural media effects such as watercolor, crayon, chalk, and pencil. In this image, I used a mask in Photoshop to combine the original photograph with the Filter Forge watercolor version. Be sure to check out the 40% Filter Forge discount [...]
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Doorway to… Compositing is the most exciting way for me to share my imagination with others. I recently released a tutorial covering how I created the reflection in this scene on the NAPP site. If you’d like to be notified when a photo is released, please click here to subscribe to my RSS feed. Click here to [...]
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Blue Birch. Twilight was just beginning as I entered this birch grove in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. The light and the air were both beginning to cool. Before removing my camera from the bag, I sat for several minutes listening to the sounds of the grove. The gentle rustling of leaves and the playful [...]
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The Beginning. This image of a purple water lily was one of the first I ever captured with a macro lens. The lovely and mysterious nature of the light emanating form the center intrigued me so much that this precious moment represents the beginning of a lifelong love affair with intimate and unusual flower portraits. [...]
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Gentle color toning, such as the soft, creamy wash in this example, can have a profound effect on the mood of a photograph. In Photoshop Workbench 354: Vintage Toning with Gradient Maps, I explain how to use Photoshop’s magnificent Gradient Map feature to produce custom color washes with vintage appearances. If you’d like to be [...]
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This photo illustration began as nothing more than a free texture that I downloaded from CGTextures.com. I was inspired by the narrow metal object in the middle that looked like a ladder. Since the “ladder” was leaning against a blue texture, my imagination kicked in and visualized the ladder leaning against a sky. By now, [...]
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When a little imagination is blended with Photoshop, there are no limitations to what you can produce. This image of a Rio Grande locomotive was captured at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado on a perfectly sunny day… but blue sky wasn’t what I had in mind. I dreamed of misty twilight with the [...]
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Swirling pastel colors add interest to this tranquil canoe scene. The colors were derived from a stained glass window that I captured by moving my camera during a long exposure. I used Photoshop’s blend modes and a layer mask to subtly mix the colors into the underlying photo. If you enjoy working with textures, this [...]
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This photograph of a steeple with overhanging maple leaves was captured on an overcast day with a textureless sky. By combining the photo with a texture from one of my just-released Texture Labs Collections, I was able to bring both interest to the sky and tell a story with the composite. If you’d like to [...]
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Opalescent World Here’s another image from my kaleidoscope series. I get such a kick out of passing photos through Lloyd William’s amazing (and free) kaleidoscope templates. It’s hard to predict what will emerge and I’m often delighted by the results. The original photograph was an abstract of the opalescent glass in a mineral lamp. I [...]
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A Million Jewels If you’re looking for a fun rainy day project, try placing a sheet of glass above a flower. Coat the glass with Rain-X, then spritz it with water. When you place your macro lens above the glass, be prepared to see a world filled with millions of glittering flower-filled jewels. To learn [...]
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