Blue hour by the sea

Daily photo - Blue hour by the sea

For today I selected this blue hour image from island of Crete.

Technically, this image isn't HDR image. Instead I used Exposure Fusion (Fusion/Natural) available in Photomatix Pro 5, which is alternative to HDR. If you would like to learn more about Exposure Fusion, read chapter about it in my HDR tutorial.

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Different infrared photo from Crete

Daily photo - Different infrared

Today I would like to share another infrared image I took back in 2013 on the island of Crete. This one is a bit different on the processing side. Normally what most IR-photographers do is to swap red & blue channels of the infrared photo to achieve blue sky in the output image. This time, however, I decided not to swap those two channels because I found the image quite interesting.

If you're interested in infrared photography, I have something for you. I wrote several tutorials about it and shared them on my blog:

• Introduction to infrared photography - will introduce you to the world of infrared photograhy. In this part I talk about equipment needed to get started with infrared photography and I also give some tips on taking infrared photos,
• Post-processing infrared photos - in this part I focus on the post-processing of IR photos to get them this very typical look with blue skies and white foliage.
• Simulating infrared photography in Photoshop - if you don't have tools necessary to create real infrared photos, there is an easy trick how to create fake IR photo directly in Photoshop.

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Sun flare in Crete

Daily photo - Sun flare in Crete

Today I would like to share simple landscape photo taken at sunset on the island of Crete back in 2013. This image might be very simple but it utilizes several techniques and tricks so it's good idea to study it for a second.

First of all I wanted to achieve star-like effect for the sun so I closed aperture to f/14.0 (note that this effect gets stronger when you slow down the aperture). Please also note where I put the sun - it's exactly in one of the intersections of golden ratio grid (you can read more about it in my guide to photo composition).

Shooting directly into the sun resulted in numerous lens flares and similar artifacts being visible in the image despite using lens hood. Those artifacts looked really ugly so I got rid of them using technique I described here. Basically I took the image twice - once normally and once with sun being blocked with my hand. Then I blended two images i Photoshop and lens flares disappeared.

Finally - this image isn't HDR image. Instead I used Exposure Fusion available in Photomatix Pro. Exposure Fusion is something like automatic version of Manual Blending. It doesn't create 32-bit HDR image - it blends source images instead. If you would like to learn more about Exposure Fusion, read chapter about it in my HDR tutorial.

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Published again and IR photo from Crete

Published again 

It looks like another of my photos has been just published in Camerapixo magazine in Hot Shots Vol. 4 issue. This time, photo they published is one of my all time favourites - Street in Barcelona. BTW it's 4th time I'm published in this magazine, thank you +Artur J. Heller and +Anetta G. Heller for that wonderful opportunity! Hopefully I will manage to push some photos into Camerapixo magazine in 2015 as well ;)

Make sure to visit magazine's website, as it's full of really great and inspiring photos! Probably one of the best collection of images you can find online.

Daily photo - Infrared photo from Crete

Today I would like to share infrared image I took in 2013 on the island of Crete.

If you're interested in infrared photography, I have something for you. I wrote several tutorials about it and shared them on my blog:

• Introduction to infrared photography - will introduce you to the world of infrared photograhy. In this part I talk about equipment needed to get started with infrared photography and I also give some tips on taking infrared photos,
• Post-processing infrared photos - in this part I focus on the post-processing of IR photos to get them this very typical look with blue skies and white foliage.
• Simulating infrared photography in Photoshop - if you don't have tools necessary to create real infrared photos, there is an easy trick how to create fake IR photo directly in Photoshop.

Continue reading for more details »

Warm Cretan Light

Daily photo - Warm Cretan Light

It's getting cold and ugly outside so what about photo taken in a bit more pleasant conditions? HDR image from today post was taken in the middle of summer in Crete.

BTW in my recent tutorial about Contrast Optimizer in Photomatix Pro, I mentioned that Contrast Optimizer can be used with great results on single LDR images. And here is example. After tone-mapping and finishing above image in Photoshop, I ended up with an image that I liked generally but which had not that great contrast and clarity. So what I did was to open this image in Photomatix Pro, choose Balanced preset and clarity and contrast greatly improved.

If you would like to create such images yourself, make sure to read my free HDR tutorial where I show how to do that.

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500k views on 500px :)

500k views on 500px

It took me quite a long time but finally... I reached 500.000 views on 500px just earlier today. You can see a little proof on the right. Well, of course it isn't anything really special but on the other hand it feels very very good knowing that so many people viewed my photos. And some of them actually liked them.

Next goal - 1 million :) I hope I'll reach it quicker than it took me to reach 500k mark.

If you're on 500px, you can follow my profile here:

https://500px.com/WojciechToman

Daily photo - Crete in IR

Today I would like to share infrared landscape photo I took last year on Crete island.

If you would like to learn more about infrared photography, make sure to read my free tutorials on that subject:

• Introduction to infrared photography,
• Post-processing infrared photos,
• Simulating infrared photography in Photoshop.

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Crete in Infrared

Click on the photo to view it in large size on black background.

Today I would like to share infrared photo I took in Ammoudara, Crete during last summer. It's almost exactly same location as yesterday yet it looks so completely different due to using infrared filter which made the scene look surreal, maybe even a bit ethereal.

If you're interested in infrared photography yourself, make sure to read my free tutorials:

• Introduction to Infrared Photography,
• Post-processing Infrared Photos.

I would also like to take this occasion to wish all my readers Happy New Year! I hope it will be a brilliant year for all of you, full of great moments in your lives and full of amazing photos.

Technical details:
Camera: Canon 5D MK III (read my review here)
Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USM
Focal length: 24 mm
Aperture: f/14.0
Exposure time: 10 s ("middle" exposure)
ISO: 1600
Number of exposures: 1
E.V. Step: n/a
Flash used: no
Tripod: yes
Filters: Hoya IR R72
Technique: infrared, luminosity masks
Software: Magic Lantern 2.3, Lightroom 5.0, Photoshop CC, Topaz Clarity

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