My Beautiful Cousins!vv| Washington D.C. Family Photographer

Sunbeams in CS5 – Before and After

I’m always looking for easy ways to enhance my images with fun tips and tricks in Photoshop. I’ve wanted to learn how to add sunbeams to images for a while, but never actually sought out a tutorial. I came across this video from The Russell Brown Show, while searching for new ideas and thought I would give it a try. This one is super easy and can really add a lot to an otherwise boring image. This was my first attempt, so I wanted to post the before and after to show the difference.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It’s very subtle, but just enough to give it a little something extra! I’ll definitely be using this one again!

Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw – Before and After

I’ve been watching a lot of photoshop tutorials lately, and I came across this youtube video posted by tutvid, that really demonstrates the capabilities in the camera raw editor in Adobe Photoshop CS5. The entire edit was done all in Camera Raw and it’s really quite fascinating. After watching the video I decided to try one of my own photographs using the same kind of technique. I went through some old photos from Hawaii and found one taken at sunset in Mokuleia on the North Shore of Oahu. I’ve always liked this particular image, but it just never did anything for me. It was kind of dull and boring and I thought it would be a good one to play with and see if adding some dramatic color would help make it a little more interesting and a little more like the actual scene. Here are my before and after images. Outside of two small spot corrections, the only editing was done in camera raw. No layers, no masks, no filters. Lots of fun and really simple.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Absolute Maui is here! | Washington D.C. Travel Photographer

It’s been months now since I was first asked to submit some photographs to Douglas Peebles for a photography project he was working on. His project was an updated version of the book, “Maui on my Mind”, and he was seeking photography of all types to make this a well-rounded and beautiful book. I submitted about thirty photos and found out that about four of my images made the first cut. After several emails back and forth I was later told that all of my images were edited out and did not make the cut. At that point I was wishing that I had submitted more and was definitely disappointed, but was most of all grateful for even being afforded the opportunity in the first place and sent an email to Doug to thank him for that.

The next day I got another email from Doug saying that they were adding two pages back into the book and would be using my image of Wailua Falls from the Road to Hana. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and could not wait to see the final product. I received my copy of the book just a few days ago and it is gorgeous! I am happy to share a few images of it here and I am so honored to be a part of this beautiful project. A special congratulations and thank you goes to my good friend and mentor, Randy Jay Braun, whose image is proudly displayed on the cover.

Absolute Maui can be found at Costco on Maui and here on Amazon.

Water Drop Photography

I had a lot of fun during my last class of the studio lighting module. Since I had my assignments complete, I decided to play around with some water drop photography. I watched an excellent tutorial by Gavin Hoey that I found on youtube. You can watch it here. It was a fairly easy set up and I got the variety of colors from a variation of sheer backgrounds ( specifically a pretty scarf thanks to Amy ), and food coloring drops. My set up was pretty much exactly like in the video except I used a pyrex baking dish instead of the painter’s tray. Next time I think I’m going to try it with milk for a different look. These were some of my favorites…