HDR – Daffodil Hill Photography

Early Autumn By The Lake

My Downsized Recent Photo Project

The last several days have found me hastily finishing up a project for my work. I work in the fundraising arm of a Joint Commission-accredited nonprofit hospice organization. I volunteered to give some of my pictures/ photo-art as part of an auction at an upcoming fundraiser. I started out wanting to have the pieces made into metal photos and canvas photos but with The Bride getting laid off and her starting nursing school full-time, well I had to downsize my goals. I talked to the lady in charge of the event, my manager’s boss, and told her what I was up to: I would use frames, ink and photo-paper from our thrift shop, with my stuff, as a part of the auction. She was very supportive, and as always very positive, in my change of plans due to the changes in our life. Some times you just have to downsize your plans yet still give none the less. So here are the photos I used in this project.

Two Photo Merges

Today I am going to act upon a suggestion from Nelson @ A few images, frozen in time and tell you about the software I use on my photos. I use Corel PaintShop Pro X6 because several years ago I got a copy of PaintShop X4 on closeout and two years later I was able to upgrade to X6 just as cheaply.

I use a simple one click photo fix that allows me to sharpen, brighten and adjust shadows and highlights from one place. I like this option since I do not like fiddling with my photos much. Why? I kind of like them as they are but sometimes you just need to give them a little love. Just saying. On the two below photos I used PaintShop’s HDR photo merge and took them with my Canon SX10is. As some of you know I am just getting into DSLR’s but used the Canon because it has an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) mode where my more expensive DSLR’s do not…..lesson here is if you want to do HDR check the camera you are looking at for this function (AEB). You can do this manually but so far my results, read here stuff I like, is better served with the AEB mode. I use a simple approach at this time and choose one of the six defaults PaintShop presents. I hope that helps anyone looking at getting into HDR even if just as a way t0o express oneself artistically. I hope you enjoy these two photo merges.

Louisville From The Sunny Side Part II

This may very well be my best HDR merge to date. I used my Canon PowerShot SX10is and Corel PaintShop Pro X6 in this merge.

Louisville From The Sunny Side

I hope to get some fresh captures soon but life has me taking captures of people not things right now. Not my strong suit but feeling the need to be stretched and who knows where that experience will take me. So I went back a few clicks in time to when I was back in Indiana visiting my brother. After a great visit I decided to stop by some of my old haunts on my way back home. One of the places I loved to hangout at was on the shores of the Mighty Ohio River. I took this on what is known as The Sunny Side of Louisville and about two feet from the Ohio River itself. I did a HDR photo effects on it to try to get the blues to pop……..Enjoy!

Two To Compare

After years of doing very little to no photo-editing of my photos I begun the search for a good, solid editing and management tool. This was last Fall when this journey began but life has a way of setting our priorities and mine did. Now I finally have the time, and truthfully the energy, to try again. I am leaning heavily towards Adobe Lightroom and adding other software as plugins. Till then I dug around some photographers I respect and see what they are using. Steve @ daPonte Photography uses OnOne Software so I looked at their products and decided to downloaded their freeware Perfect Effects 8. The first photo I used Perfect Effects 8 to give it a light HDR/Grunge look. The second is the original with a brightness/contrast adjustment applied with Paint.NET, a software I stumbled upon while digging around the web..

Next week I am hoping to test drive TopazLabs free trail of some of their software. My buddy Mike @ Mike’s Look at Life does some amazing things with his already solid captures using some of their software. Till then here is Two To Compare.

Light touch of brightness/contrast using Paint.NET

A Couple Of Hand Held HDR Photos

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I had spent the hour I had to kill taking some pics. Since I do not own a good, or even a half-way decent tri-pod I did these hand. With that said any ideas on a good-to-great-very-mobile-lightwieght-full-size-tri-pod?As I wait for replies to this question, here are a couple of hand-held HDR photos.

2013 In Review by WordPress

I am a pretty clueless guy so I did not know really how many photos I uploaded and shared, nor how many visitors and views I had. I checked to see what was working and to challenge myself on the things that were not. After viewing my annual report I am amazed that so many people dropped by my place and commented on my stuff. It humbles me I am very thankful for you all.

I want to Thank WordPress, and their dedication to bloggers of all shapes, sizes and flavors, for the vehicle with which I have shared a sliver of my world with quite a few folks. The WordPress.com stats ~~helper~~ monkeys prepared this 2013 annual report for my blog. Thanks again and here is to a wonder-filled 2014!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,400 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Photo Challenges Weekly Photo Challenge: Grand

Here are just a few of the things I find to be Grand.

Two Sides of Lincoln

After going to the farmers market The Bride and I went to visit a wonderful little hole-in-the-wall burger joint called Lahas. It has been in business since 1934 and we love just the place! It is in an adjoining county to ours but the burgers are worth the drive. They have crinkle fries as well. Crinkle fries rule! If you are ever in LaRue County Kentucky you need to check it out.

While I was there I took several photos of the above mentioned statues. Since I could not come up with a better title, I went with what it is: There are two statues in the town of Hodgenville, Ky representing two side of Abraham Lincoln. They are on the square and face one another on opposite sides of the square. Here are two very different takes of these statues. One is in HDR and the other is a traditional shot.