Graveyard

My colleague Richard is organizing a Halloween Party in two weeks time and he asked me to take a few photos of the graveyard for his slideshow. Fortunately, there is one graveyard nearby our work place so we took a couple of minutes during lunch hour to go and see if we could get some shots. The weather was beautiful that day hence I had no excuse to refuse it. As a matter of fact, it’s been a while I wanted to take a photo of that graveyard. It’s just that I always in a rush and haven’t got time for it. Last week, I took this opportunity to discover that place with him.

So, here are some shots I managed to get that day. I converted them all to black and white to give more impact to the scenery as well as environment.

I’m still thinking whether or not to go to his Halloween Party. It’s definitely going to be extremely fun. The only problem is, I haven’t got a costume yet! What am I going to be then? A vampire with bloody teeth? Hahaha.

Thanks for tuning in people. Hope you enjoy your stay. Cheers.

Faris

Posted in Fun, HDR, Photography, Photoshop | 30 Comments »

Simple Steps For HDR Photos

So what is HDR? Why all of a sudden I am talking about HDR? They are photos as well but why some people treat them so special? Some people are so eager to learn about HDR photos. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Basically, HDR has been in this world for quite a while already. It’s just that some people like me just discovered it hence got so excited when had a chance to learn it. To be honest, I have heard about it many years ago but I completely neglected it because it sounded ridiculous to me at that time. Ridiculous in terms of my capability to produce that kind of images, if you know what I mean. You definitely need skills in Photoshop in order to create HDR images.

HDR is not alien no more to us nowadays. If you go to Flickr, type HDR and you will find massive HDR photos produced by various of people on this planet. When I first saw it, I thought it was impossible for me. But then again, nothing is impossible isn’t it? Now that is so unbelieveable the HDR photos are actually on my Flickr page. I took the photos and created them myself. I thought it was very complicated until I experienced it myself. You would not believe if I say it just needs a few simple steps to create one. Certainly you need to be Photoshop literate first in order to operate the application otherwise, you will get stuck in the middle.

First thing you have to do is, take pictures. Now, when I say take pictures, it is not going to be as same as ordinary photos you always take. This is going to be a little bit different. Unfortunately, this only apply to DSLR camera or any camera that has “Bracketing” mode because in order to produce HDR images, you are required to take at least three different exposures of the same shot. It can go up to nine exposures if not mistaken. So, to ensure the photos you take are in the same position, you might want to consider a tripod to hold your camera steadily. By taking three exposures, your camera will automatically capture the original, under and over exposure.

Once you have got the images, you need a software to merge the photos. The only software I know so far is Photomatix. It is very simple and easy to use. I quite like it to be honest. If you haven’t heard or seen it before, go google to get some ideas what I am talking about. You can always edit the final result in Photomatix itself where it has a few tools if you would like to increase more tones and colours, sharpened a little bit and many more. I always do my final editing in Photoshop. I’m not saying Photomatix isn’t good. It is more like I’m used to Photoshop so, it would be a lot easier for me. Then, it’s all about your creativity. How do you want the images to look like. It’s entirely up to you.

Please correct me if I say anything wrong here. Or if anyone out there who knows better you are always welcome to add or correct it on the comment field. I also would like to apologize for not being detailed in terms of explaining how to process HDR photos. But I do hope you understand a little bit what HDR photo means. Thanks very much for reading and viewing. Enjoy your stay. Cheers.

Faris

Posted in HDR, Photography, Photoshop, Techno | 4 Comments »

Healing Brush Tool

I had tummy ache yesterday & today! I don’t know about tomorrow but I’m hoping the pain will go away because it really hurts my tummy! I didn’t have lunch today because I wasn’t hungry even though I didn’t have breakfast. It sounded a bit strange but that’s what happened this afternoon. One of my colleague brought some chocolate orange cheesecake and owh it was beautiful. It happened after I had the cheesecake and a cup of coffee and all of a sudden my tummy started to go crazy. Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the cheesecake (tolong jangan marah aku Yusrina hehe). Probably it’s just my tummy. *Sigh*.

Anyway, today I would like to share with you unedited and edited photos. Well, obviously you can see it straight away can’t you? But before I move on, there’s a story behind it. That is actually a photo of a friend taken in year 2005 if not mistaken. So, basically I was digging up some old photos from my CDs and couldn’t believe I still keep this photo. Thought I had lost it long time ago because I remember that was the last time I took the photo using this camera Fujifilm FinePix S7000 before sold it. We were about to go to the camera shop when I took a photo of him.

What surprises me, although it’s just a prosumer camera but the quality of the photo is excellent and I really love how it renders the colour to look natural yet vibrant, and its sharpness isn’t bad at all. Note that none of the colour correction has been done except the healing brush tool in Photoshop 3 which I used to remove the pimples and scars on the face that’s all.

Hope you enjoy your stay and thanks very much for tuning in! Cheers.

Posted in Photography, Photoshop, Portraits | 6 Comments »

HDR

My first trial HDR editing. Hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for stopping over. Cheers.

Posted in HDR, Kids, Photoshop | 9 Comments »

Head Spinning Around

Tomorrow I have got an appointment with Cityside NINO Jobcentre Plus Office regarding my National Insurance Number (NI). This will be a challenge for me because the office is located in London and since I came here in May 2007 until now, I think I merely went down to Central London less than 10 times if I’m not mistaken. What a shame. But yeah, that’s the truth. Luckily, the interview starts at 15:00, so I have got plenty time to figure out how to get there. All documentations are ready I reckon. There’s nothing much to prepare actually as long as I bring those what mentioned in the letter. I’m not sure whether or not I’m going to the office tomorrow because I have informed my boss last week about my tomorrow’s interview. In my head now, 70% stay at home, 30% go to work hahaha. We’ll see later if the thinking change.

This week is another idle week hahaha. In other words, I have done nothing but sitting in front of my PC and surfing the net. In fact, I was over slept. What a bad habit. But that always comes to my mind during weekend. It’s like my head has been set up to be lazy over the weekend. This is something I’m working out now. It is totally different what I usually do back in Malaysia. I have badminton session at least 3 days a week. I go for a jog. Go out and take photos. I do lots of stuff I reckon. Unlike here, I become lazy. I don’t know why. Is it because of the weather? Can’t blame the weather though. Think I should start listing down what to do every weekend so that I won’t waste it just like that. Maybe something like, this week cleaning and tidy up my room, next week plan for a trip to somewhere for some photos opportunity. That would be more organized I reckon. Plan something ahead is always good. Anyway, it’s been a while I didn’t take photos. I miss it so much. Can’t remember what time it was, but I took the photo (above) as soon as I saw the sun shined and it was a lovely day. You don’t have to wait for summer for a great photo actually. It still can be done in any season if you’re always ready.

Okay, here we go again with photo editing and stuff. As a matter of fact, I have been questioning myself for a long time how did people do HDR (High Dynamic Range) editing. And until now, I’m still lost, looking for bloody tutorials. All of a sudden, this came accross my head when I was doing some editing on Photoshop. I remember a friend told me about one method of photo processing. So, I tried it once again but this time to be more creative, I applied a few things to make it different from what I’ve done so far. I don’t know what kind of editing this is called but I enjoyed doing it. I know it looks so fantasy but that is the intention. When I showed it to my friends, some even said it looks like cartoon. Well, I was just playing around with photoshop. Just to know what does each tool in Photoshop do. You won’t know if you don’t try, will you? Now, you can see how different it is between original and edited photos. Nevertheless, I like it both either original or edited.

Love,

Faris

Posted in Personal, Photography, Photoshop | 15 Comments »