Episcopal Church.

[Mystical Potato Head]

In HDR.

or B&W

[cuddlepop]

Black and white its my favourite everytime.
What do you do to your prints to make them look like oil paintings its terrific.

[brandy]

ohhh HDR is great!!
was wondering if i could get some advice!
i love your pics and basically drool when i see them! *G*
im getting ready to upgrade to a new camera, from a bridge to a dslr.
ive been hewing and hawing between the nikon d60, the Pentax k-m and the cannon eos1000D (thats in my budget) and i like the canon 450D but a little out of buget right now.
im new to slrs so will have to learn everything, but enthusiastic and have a passion for photography.
anyway, if able i would love some advice!!
thanks
brandy

[kas]

HDR wins for me. Where is this church?

[Mystical Potato Head]

Black and white its my favourite everytime.
What do you do to your prints to make them look like oil paintings its terrific.

I just boost the saturation levels of the colours,use the dodge and burn tools to highlight or dull certain areas,a hint of soft focus on certain areas.More often than not i just mess around until something pops up that i like.For HDR i use Photomatix which stacks your images together and gives you the hdr image which you can then adjust using the software's tonemapping.Just mess around with the various options till you get something you like.

HDR wins for me. Where is this church?

Its the one across from Hendersons the opticians.

ohhh HDR is great!!
was wondering if i could get some advice!
i love your pics and basically drool when i see them! *G*
im getting ready to upgrade to a new camera, from a bridge to a dslr.
ive been hewing and hawing between the nikon d60, the Pentax k-m and the cannon eos1000D (thats in my budget) and i like the canon 450D but a little out of buget right now.
im new to slrs so will have to learn everything, but enthusiastic and have a passion for photography.
anyway, if able i would love some advice!!
thanks
brandy

Ive only ever had canons,got my first about 18 months ago,Canon 350d from the Canon ebay outlet.The're classed as refurbished which usually means they have been sitting in a showroom or have a damaged box which was sent back.Mine was a demo model in mint condition from a showroom and if you dont mind second hand there is some real bargains to be had.
Heres the link to Canons ebay outlet.A lot of Canon 400d's for sale.
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Canon-...__W0QQ_armrsZ1

I now have a 450d and i am delighted with it.Dont think there's much of difference between the 400/450 and the 1000d.
All 3 are "wallet friendly" and have a reputation for producing good noise free images.They're light,compact and not too complicated to get to grips with especially if you take the time to read the manual that comes with it,which of course i did....nt
Whatever you choose i would advise shooting in auto for a wee while till you get a feel for the camera,then go on to the different modes like av and when you get confident with those try manual where everything is down to you,focus, exposure times,etc.

Good luck and whatever you choose you'll get loads of enjoyment from it which at the end of the day is what its all about.
Glad you like the photos.

[kas]

I thought that first and then thought nahhh that cant be right.
Super photo Cheers MPH.

[brandy]

thanks hun! the 450d has live view dosent it? thats the main niggle im having with dslrs most dont have live view.. so a bit gurny about that.. *G*

[Mystical Potato Head]

thanks hun! the 450d has live view dosent it? thats the main niggle im having with dslrs most dont have live view.. so a bit gurny about that.. *G*

Yep it has,i dont use it very often,only when i cant get my eyes near the viewfinder like when you hold the camera up high or very low down.Also my eyesight makes focusing with liveview a bit of a lottery or is it my arms that are too short.

I thought that first and then thought nahhh that cant be right.
Super photo Cheers MPH.

Maybe the fact i photoshopped out the house that was in the bottom left of the photo makes it look like its out in the country somewhere.

[brandy]

im curious now, can we see the orig.?

[Fran]

I was just thinking about the black and white picture above,.....put some people wearing red outside and some snow around, and that would make the perfect christmas card.

[shazzap]

Really nice HDR for me.

[Mystical Potato Head]

im curious now, can we see the orig.?

Here it is.

[shazzap]

Here it is.

This is really good.
When you alter your photo's they look surreal.

[Mystical Potato Head]

I was just thinking about the black and white picture above,.....put some people wearing red outside and some snow around, and that would make the perfect christmas card.

Heres a little snow.Wont have long to wait for the real stuff.

[Fran]

That is really lovely. I'm sure you could sell your pictures to the Groat office to be made into christmas cards.

[cuddlepop]

Heres a little snow.Wont have long to wait for the real stuff.

That is just so gorgeous.You are clever with that "eye" of yours.
I love the depth you get in your photo's you can almost imagine the distance from the gate to the church,especially the tweeked ones.

[Deemac]

Nice shots MPH and fab PS job!

Here's the interior of the building taken August 2008.

[Mystical Potato Head]

Thanks for you comments.
Cracker Deemac,it has a lovely warm glow to it.

[shazzap]

Heres a little snow.Wont have long to wait for the real stuff.

I love this. How do you do this?

[Mystical Potato Head]

Shazzap....I use the dodge tool with the size set at somewhere beteen 10 and 20,set range to midtones and exposure to about 50%.Then just go over the areas you want to turn snowy.This will get eveything looking light grey,change the range to highlights and go over everything again,this will get most areas white,any that have a bit of colour showing through can be sorted by using the sponge tool and set it to desaturate 100%.This will remove any colour that is showing through the white.
You could just set the dodge tool to highlights 100%,it will turn things white but looks a bit harsh.
As for the snowflakes,well thats seemples.A Photoshop plugin which can be downloaded FREE from this link.

http://www.vanderlee.com/plugins_snowflakes.html

Have fun with it.