COJ Photography contest, week 5: Shadows (Page 2)

Well shoot........I have not poked my nose in here to see what kind of photos people have put up until now.
AND I took a photo identical to this today .
.......back to the drawing board!!! 

Very nice! I especially love the texture and color of the background. Is that a wall or stucco type stuff?

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shadows.jpg (49KB - 12 downloads)

It is just a concrete wall on an old pier. It is very old and colored from the salt water, 

here something.. its really a reflection because its over water.. buuuutttttt....





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IMG_3057aa.jpg (89KB - 10 downloads)

My dog bear hiding in the shadows doing her best batman impression watching over her gotham city or just hiding from the broom.

 





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iphone 187.JPG (27KB - 9 downloads)

very nice so far guys, keep them coming!

This is the race medal for Musselman Tri last year.

thats awesome!

Now I wish I had waited. Got a shot last evening that I like much better.

Newbz, any tips on where to start to play with lighting in PS?

One quick way to change the lighting effect is to use the lasso tool and draw a rough outline around the main focal point of the image. Feather that about 75 to 100 then invert the selection and make that selection a layer. Now with that layer you can change density (darker is better) or/and add a bit of blur to bring more attention the layer below. 

with the caveat that there are a million and one ways to skin a cat,

I normally start with one of two methods (and generally use some of both).

One is working with multiple layers and using levels/curves to get the desired contrast/shadows/highlights and then blending the areas from each layer i want.

two is dodging and burning areas, often combined with above.

three (although often harder to get to look right wihtout the proper care) is the lighting effects filter (i have no idea what the newer photoshops have in this regard, or how much more they have).

ALmost 98% of hte lighting work i do though is a mix of curves, dodge/burning, and multiple layer blending.

That all said, lighting is BY FAR my strongest area in photography and something i tend to look for when shooting, ie for me the lighting is often more important than what i am shooting and i'll look fo that

If you have specific questions about how t odo something/certain effect let me know and i can walk you through the steps a bit more.

Thanks guys. It's stuff I used to know, but haven't played with in a couple years. I'm also using GIMP (an open source program) and while it seems to do everything I need and be very similar to PS, it's just different enough that I'll probably have to figure it out on my own vs. having the ability to be walked through from a PS expert. I'll play with it some more.

nice shot

very nice.

Are these due tonight at midnight or did you change that?  Not sure that will happen.

Sun. night is deadline now. 

thanks for answering!

yep you have through tonight.

Thanks folks.  Not sure that will happen either.  It is easy for me to dig through my hard drive than to take the weekly photos.  I will try to get one taken and posted by tonight.

Had a mini vaca so I had to improvise on the go. I like everyones ideas about shadows. Kind of funny that some had the same ideas I had. I was thinking of shadow puppets with kids and taking a pic of my shadow fishing. This morning there were a bunch of starfish washed up on the beach so I took this shot.

Standing in the shadows cast by some palm trees near my home.  I added a slight blurring effect in PS to make it seem just a bit dreamy.

 

 

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TreeShadow.JPG (83KB - 14 downloads)

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Alex in shadow sml.jpg (96KB - 9 downloads)