Nik Software

As most probably know I love Nik Software. I use the couple of plug-ins that I own quite alot. I haven't found a bad plug-in. Recently Nik just updated all of them to run under Aperture and released them as a collection. These were good under both Photoshop and Aperture. Just today they are allowing a download for Aperture only for only$299. Yes that's alot of money, but considering the same package under Photoshop is $599 you can see what an incredible savings this is for Aperture users. You can read more about the deal and purchase Nik the Complete Collection here.

How a Picture Evolves

I've had many people ask about the picture of Buddy I posted in the last blog. So, I thought I'd take a minute to let you know how that shot came to be.

I have spent much time reading two important blogs. One is Strobist and the other is David Tejada's blog. I highly recommend both blogs. Anyone can learn much from either site. I will admit that I am guilty of not reading Strobist much anymore. David Hobby was the first though to give me the creative spark that I could actually take a picture with these small pocket-sized light sources. David Tejada gives many more practical tools and applications to use them in. I will be taking a class this upcoming weekend from David T. so I can't wait to learn many new techniques. I will blog about it when I get back.

Now back to the picture of Buddy. I wanted to keep practicing single strobe lighting. I had dragged along a shoot-through umbrella and also had a very beautiful Voice Activated Lightstand and wanted to try and get a nice shot of either Buddy or Punkin in front of the setting sun. After taking more macros of flowers we moved as fast as we could to the Japanese Garden at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, there is always a lot of good spots to shoot there. We quickly moved along the trail and came to a spot next to the river that runs through the Park. In this case Punkin, who is my normal model, was sulking and hiding in the dark. I asked Buddy and he seemed very excited to have his picture taken. I was using the D3 as well as the SU-800. My VAL, was holding an SB-800 and and umbrella (isn't she talented) off of camera left. I also had the Stofen diffuser on top of the SB-800. I found a spot for Buddy to stand to try and frame him and also capture the last of the glow of the setting sun. I got a series of pictures of which this was the best of that bunch. As for one reason (already discussed in a previous blog) and for various other reasons, Buddy is 8 & he doesn't like to sit still, so this is a rare and short-lived opportunity. This is the shot right out of the camera converted to .jpg from Aperture.



From Aperture I round-tripped into Capture NX. The reason I do this is because I love Nik Control Points. Yes I could purchase Viveza from Nik for Aperture for $245, but why when I could get a much more full-featured program and even better control points with using Capture NX. That would normally cost only $189 (a nice savings over Viveza), but I had an upgrade price of ~$119. I am all about saving money. In this case the control points allow you to selectively control anything in the program. Noise Reduction, sharpening and even Nik Color Efex 3.0. I mean anything you might want to do. Truly a remarkable piece of software and I highly recommend it.

When I sized up where I would like to use this program feature, I started with the background. First, I boosted up the setting sun with a Control Point (CP) on that part of the sky. I added some warmth and also some redness. I did a matching CP in the reflection in the water. This allowed them to look similar. Then I did some spot NR on Buddy's face as well as in the sky - I was at ISO 12,800 after all! I only had NR in those areas...that is the advantage of using Capture NX. The next step was to put another CP on Buddy's face to take out some of the redness and boost contrast. After removing the redness, I added back some warmth to give him a nice glow.

After looking at the picture I realized I wanted to get rid of some of the light surrounding him, I wished I had snooted the light while on location, but with CP's I can easily adjust the amount of Brightness. I put 3 or 4 CP's around Tyler in the areas where I felt I needed to bring the Brightness down. After adjusting those CP's down, I got the final effect that you see at the top. This may sound like quite a bit of work, but with Control Points, well it was about 5 minutes (less time than it took to write it out). Everything was targeted and easy.

Off to Kingman and the Great Basin

I had an opportunity a great short trip out west. My plans included trips to San Francisco and Kingman, AZ. Little did I know that storms would hit the Chicago area which would delay my departure until Tuesday morning. I wasn't feeling the love from United despite being a Premier member they still bumped me off of my flight into Denver. I had a layover before I would get to SFO. As I was at the airport they told me I might get to Denver that evening, but once there they wouldn't have any idea when I might make it from Denver to San Francisco. Since I had pressing business plans and needed to be there Tuesday if I was to be there at all, I concentrated on the latter half of the trip with a flight to Vegas and then driving through the rocky dry country into Kingman, Arizona. I was all set to go with at least a little love from United in letting them bump me over to a flight to Las Vegas when a tornado warning hit the O'Hare airport. Since it was obvious that I was not flying tonight or at least any time soon and I was only a few miles from home, I opted to sleep in my own bed and see what tomorrow might bring me for flights.

Well Tuesday morning I got out of bed disgusted with O'hare swearing off ever flying from there again...that lasted a whole 3 weeks. I found a flight out of Milwaukee (MKE) to Vegas for as little as $240, but it was leaving and my bags were already checked to SFO from the night before. With nothing but a bag in hand and my computer...of course the cameras were in with the computer, I packed the important things and headed to MKE to catch the flight. All went well there. Almost all of my travel experiences go well out of Milwaukee. After landing I needed to find where the rest of my bags were. Worse thing was that with those bags was my tripod, Circular Polarizer and extra battery. Just a few of the incidentals. Midwest Airlines helped me track my bags down, but I wouldn't receive them from United until Wednesday. So I was left with few clothes, no tripod and no CP. I'm in the middle of the Great Basin without a CP and that is just asking from trouble. I won't even go into how I can't hand-hold anything anymore. I did have my trusty Fuji S5 for this trip...love those colors.

As I walked around the Vegas airport...have I said I don't gamble. Vegas to me is interested and very scary. What was really scary to me is what Carrot Top has done to himself. Well I jumped into the car and headed off to get myself a CP so I could take some pictures. I didn't know what to do about the tripod, but I would figure it out later. With the help of my dw, I found a place called Casey's. Nice Photoshop and very good prices. I picked up a Rodenstock and then was able to head out.

I found a great road to take off the beaten path. This lead me to Grapevine Canyon and a wonderful place to see Petroglyphs. Now this would have been perfect had it not been 105 and without a tripod. I did the best I could as I was wobbling from heatstroke. I had a great time...I did my research beforehand with one of my favorite photography guides. I highly recommend this Newsletter, Photograph America.

After getting back I was trying out the Silver Efex Plugin from Nik...pretty pricey, but it does a nice job. I love Control Points. Don't think I will buy it because I like the conversions almost as much from other programs.

So without further adieu, here are the pictures. Enjoy and comment...don't make comments on how much out of focus they are. I wanted my tripod there and it didn't happen.