Settling In

I shot this out in Shell Beach a few days before the move. I was trying to get in as much beach time as possible before I found myself stuck in the city again. I actually got too much sun at the beach on friday and ended up with a nice sunburn on my back. Just what you want when you’re going to be moving the next day.

So far, the hardest part about being in Santa Clara is the painfully slow internet at my grandma’s house. It definitely has to be upgraded if I’m going to keep my sanity. The second hardest part is living with someone who is losing their memory. She keeps telling people I’m only here for a few days (I’m not) and each morning she gets startled when I join her in the kitchen because she forgets I’m here.

Another thing I’m not loving is all of the people and the pace of life. I’m definitely a small town guy that appreciates nature and open spaces after 9 years of living in small towns. I’m having a bit of culture shock again, just like I did when I first left the city. Fun stuff…

Tangled Sunset

I finally was able to catch a sunset at the beach last night. We’re getting our June gloom foggy weather already, which means sunsets are usually ruined. Lucky for me, last night the fog stayed off the coast just far enough.

This particular sunset wasn’t anything too amazing. I felt like I should use a few apps to make it look more beautiful in my eyes. First, I shot with TrueHDR. If you’re new to my blog, I use TrueHDR a lot because often times it makes for a  more realistic image by combining two exposures. Next, I used Snapseed to brighten a little, add contrast, and bump up the saturation slightly. Then, I used TangledFX for the painterly/fibrous look. Finally, I used Snapseed again because I felt like the image needed more contrast and saturation.

Joshua Tree Sunset

This was a challenging sunset shoot for me for a couple of reasons. #1 It was very, very windy. #2 I forgot to charge my batteries before this trip and by the time we made it to Joshua Tree, they were both flashing at me because they were nearly dead. I had to set up a shot ahead of time, turn the camera on, take the photo, and turn it off immediately, just to conserve the battery.

Lesson learned. Always double check the batteries before leaving on a trip and bring the charger even if you don’t think you’ll need it.

I really didn’t expect much of a sunset because of the mountains to the west. I’m used to wide open ocean for the sunset, so anticipating what the scene would look like in the dessert was a challenge. I didn’t think there would be any color in the sky. I was totally wrong. Not only did the sky behind me in this shot turn pink, but the land had a salmon colored glow to it. It was cool to see even if I didn’t get any incredible photos of it. I still have to edit a few of those and see if I like them.

Shot with my Nikon D7000 on a tripod. Edited with Photoshop CS6, Topaz Software, and Nik Software.

Magical Pismo

So I downloaded a free app the other day called MasterFX. Its an app that allows you to add a lot of special effects to your image. I don’t think its an app I would use too often, but its very easy to use and does a very clean job of blending in different elements. There are a lot of freebies in the app, but also a lot of paid stuff. The stuff I  used was all free.

I like all of the tools in the app that allow for greater control and creativity. You can resize elements, copy them, mask them, mirror/flip them, distort them, and you can even adjust the opacity.

In this image I added the sunburst and rays on the left, the white bokeh effect around the base of the palms, the hot air balloon, and the stars. It really only took a few minutes to complete the image. I have to admit it was fun to be creative again.

Secret Arch

In a funny coincidence, I have a photo featured on photobotos today. The one featured was actually shot up on top of the rock in this photo here.

This cave/arch thing is just a short drive from where I live. I didn’t even know about it until I saw another photographer post a photo of it recently. All I had to do was walk down a mountain of stairs to get to it. Maybe thats why I didn’t find it sooner.

The great thing about this beach is its at a hotel, so the crowds don’t know about it. I had the beach to myself most of the time until a couple came down to watch the sunset. I’m happy to have found another secret beach that the tourists don’t know about

This time out, I was mostly just scouting the location and observing the light at sunset. I don’t think the sun will ever rise or set through the arch, which is too bad. I’m still trying to figure out what time of day will give me the best lighting. I guess I’ll just have to do sunrise, sunset, and stormy. My guess is storm clouds will make the best scene.

Shot with ProHDR because TrueHDR was making the sky grey. Edited with Snapseed.

Joshua Tree Sunset

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to take a photo with your iPhone after the sun has gone down, but it’s a challenge to get a shot like this. You absolutely have to use an HDR app that takes multiple exposures and merges them. If you try to use a regular camera app, you’ll end up with either a nicely exposed sky and a very dark foreground, or a white sky and a properly exposed foreground. Sadly, neither one is like what you were seeing in person.

For this shot, I used TrueHDR. Ideally, you’d set your phone up on a tripod for HDR, especially at this time of day. It’s very important to keep the camera as still as possible so the HDR app can merge the images more cleanly. If you click on the image to view it larger, you’ll notice the the trees in the middle of the image are slightly off, as well as the hill on the right. Luckily, its not too noticeable if you’re just sharing a smaller version with your friends. You may not have even noticed it if I hadn’t pointed it out.

I edited this one with Snapseed. The image straight from TrueHDR was very flat, meaning it needed more contrast and some pop.

Building Reflections

This was shot out in Sacramento a couple of months ago. We stopped in Old Sac, for a break, on our way from Oregon to the central coast. There’s a high concentration of candy shops within a few blocks of each other. That’s mainly what I remember. That and the cool architecture of the old, haunted buildings.

I don’t really remember the apps used. I think it was TrueHDR for the camera. I’m not sure if I edited with another app.

Tranquil Sunset

May this photo bring you some peace today

Tangled Clouds

The clouds were pretty interesting the other evening. Just for a few moments, the light and the colors of the scene were awesome. I was lucky enough to be there to witness it. Stupid me didn’t wait around for the sunset though. I drove to another part of the coast, chasing a cloud that I was hoping would make for a great shot at sunset. Unfortunately, it evaporated before the sun went down and I was left in the middle of agriculture fields with nothing too exciting going on.

This was shot with TrueHDR. Edited with Snapseed, Tangled FX, and ImageBlender. I liked the Tangled FX version, but wanted to dial it back a bit by using ImageBlender to reduce the opacity of the effect to about 70% just to bring back a hint of realism.

Shannon Shooting at Sunset

Since this one was well received on 500px, I thought I would share it with you all here. I’m sure the popularity has nothing to do with adding a girl to a landscape, or in this case a seascape. I will admit that its an idea I’ve had for a while now, girls and landscapes, but just hasn’t materialized yet. Models tend to be flaky, you know.

Lucky for me, I had Shannon (Seeing Spots Photography) with me out at Sand Dollar Beach near Big Sur, so I was able to snap a few shots of her during the beautiful sunset.

If you’re on 500px, please add me and I’ll be happy to do the same . My page is here. If you’re not familiar with 500px, its the photo sharing site photographers use when they’ve evolved beyond Flickr. I don’t mean that in a bad way, or an I’m better than Flickr way. Flickr is great for what it is, which is more for hobbyists and people just beginning to explore photography. 500px is a more experienced community inhabited by a stunning amount of talented photographers. Go check it out and see for yourself.

Shot with my Nikon D7000. Edited with magic dust

Pelican at sunset & MORE!

First, let me say that this image definitely looks better larger. You can see it in fullscreen on my fb page (be sure to like it while you’re there.)

I was driving some backroads in Morgan Hill when I came upon a cool scene that I had to shoot. While I was shooting that scene, I saw pelicans fly over and land in the water. I figured I would try to snap a few pics of them with my Nikon, not expecting anything too special. I have to say that I’m pretty pleased with the results though.

I also wanted to promote Shannon’s fb page and blog today. She’s the brains and talent behind Seeing Spots Photography. I’m happy to say that, in just a few days, she will be flying almost 3000 miles to come shoot some cool locations with me. That means you get to see how landscape photographers from opposite coasts approach the same scenes and you’ll also get to see what our creative minds can come up with together.

We’ll be going to Joshua Tree (her suggestion,) Big Sur (my suggestions,) and whatever else we can squeeze into this weekend. I’m excited to finally meet Shannon so we can talk shop and throw around ideas for some future endeavors. I’m sure this trip will be a nice creative kick in the butt for both of us. And I promise I won’t let her leave CA without a ton of awesome new content to share with you all.

App Review: Aquarella

Aquarella is yet another interesting app by JixiPix. They’ve made other apps that I recommend, such as Dramatic BW, SimplyHDR, and PhotoArtista Oil. There’s a lot to like about Aquarella, and a couple of things that bug me. Let’s take a look at their familiar user interface. (You can click on the images to see them larger.)

   

    

Just like in their other apps, JixiPix provides the user with a lot of presets. The 32 Aquarella Presets will apply a watercolor effect while keeping the colors roughly the same. The 28 TwoTone presets will change the image into a watercolor using two tones instead of all that are present in the original. When working on a two tone image, there is a tone panel where you can choose the two tones you want to use.

   

If you want to make your own adjustments, or fine tune a preset, tap on the adjust button on the bottom to bring up this panel. The color panel is where a lot of the heavy lifting is done. By adjusting the details, you can get a image with a subtle painterly effect to an image that looks like a rough watercolor. The color detail slider affects how much overall detail is in the image by adding or subtracting the range of colors. The enhancing colors slider adjusts the saturation. Wet Edge Strength adjusts the thickness of the line between colors. Wet Edge Detail also affects the amount of detail in the image. To me it acts like the clarity slider in photoshop or lightroom.

Texture is the paper style that image is painted on. It varies from subtle to a very noticeable canvas.

    

The wash and Bloom panels both make the image appear more like a watercolor. Think of the Wash as overlaying color on your image. It will change the color in your image slightly, or quite a bit, depending on what the Color Strength and Color Shift are set to. There are an incredible 63 choices in the wash panel.

The bloom is basically adding a texture to the image that makes it look like a watercolor. Some of the bloom overlays have drips or splatters to make it look like someone actually painted it. You can adjust the opacity of the bloom by adjusting the Bloom Strength. If you switch from normal to reverse, it basically inverts the white to black and black to white, giving you even more variety to the 41 textures to choose from.

The Share panel has a number of features to note. First, in the settings panel, you can choose to save your images as low, medium, or high. I always choose high. You can also save your settings as a preset and name it so you can use the same settings in the future. There are buttons to share directly to facebook, twitter, and tumblr. The app will render the image for those mediums, which takes some time.

Gripes

Not everything was perfect with this app for me. The loading and saving were very slow. They do admit that the app is optimized for the iPhone 5, so thats probably my issue. I’m using an iPhone4, so I’m sure its faster on the newer models. I tested the loading speed multiple times, with the slowest being 37 seconds before it even began to render the image for the first time. The fastest loading time for me was 20 seconds. It seems like 27 seconds is about the average time. In an age of instant gratification, this is a lifetime haha. The save times were much worse. The first few times I saved an image I thought it was taking way too long, so I decided to time it. After a number of tests, 2 minutes seems to be the average time it takes to save a hi-res image.

Examples

These are examples that I created. The last one is an example of a two tone preset.

    

Conclusion

The results are great for an easy to use app. Its fun to play with and theres a lot of room for customization. The wash and bloom overlays are where you’ll be able to really make your photo look like a watercolor. This is an app that can save your photos that might be a little out of focus by turning them into a lovely painting. If you enjoy turning your photos into paintings, Aquarella is an excellent app to pick up.

Rating   5/5 I can forgive the sluggishness because my phone is considered somewhat old now.

Price   2.99 for the iPhone and iPad. Currently 7.99 for the Mac.

Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

Golden Sunrise

Another shot from the D7000. I’m just throwing this up quickly so I have something to share today. I have “homework” to do. Best Buy wants me to write some tips for their mobile blog for taking better photos with your iPhone and I want to finish this app review for Aquarella today.

Into The Sunset

I was looking through the images from this shoot again a few days ago and found another that I liked. If you’ve ever wondered how the heck I edit my images in photoshop, I’ll let you behind the curtain on this one. I made a blog post over on my website that will take you through the steps. Before & After

Arroyo Grande Sunset

I was at my friends house the other day when we noticed an awesome sunset taking place. Luckily she has an amazing view from the balcony of the house. I just wish my Nikon wasn’t in the car. I only had time to snap a shot with the trusty iPhone.

Shot with TrueHDR and edited with Snapseed. Most of the editing was done in TrueHDR by applying a retro filter. I think it worked for this shot.

 

Oh, btw, I’d like to wish you all a happy new year. May 2013 be filled with tons of photos and creative growth. I’ll try to get back into the habit of posting more. Of course, that means I’ll have to shoot some more.