French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

Stunning Illustrations by Therese Larsson

Up to now you have seen many kinds of illustrations at incredible snaps but now this is something different and really mind blowing illustrations you are going to watch at incredible snaps. The...

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Michelle Ellis’s Conceptual Photography

A photography that illustrates an idea is said to be conceptual photography. Conceptual Photography is derived from conceptual art, a movement that takes place in 1960s. A methodology or a genre is...

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Natal Alu

Natal Alu is a wonderful designed outdoor furniture collection of tribu that perfectly fits into nearly every garden and every living-room.

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Mid-century travel style movie posters by Muti

A series of posters for Ster-Kinekor Theaters. The concept was to illustrate locations found only in the respective movies and portray them as destinations in a classic, mid-century travel poster style.

More Posters

30 Awesome Digital Portraits

Portrait is a popular subject of both traditional and digital medias. Photorealistic isn't the sole goal with digital painting. It has more power to render intricate portraiture with emotions and details.

In this post, you will enjoy a collection of 30 awesome digital portraits. Unlike the portrait photography, or portraits by other media, the digital portrait evokes other level of imaginations and mystical feelings.

More inspirations

Amish

“Amish” photo series by photographer Carlos Fernandez Laser.

More photos here.

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

Catch some serious attention with these!

Catch some serious attention with the TommyOwnes design of the month frame!

Spring Flowers

Last week’s Texas Landscape Safari was incredible. It’s been years since the Hill Country put on a wildflower show this full of color and variety and we all had a great time photographing this feast for the eyes.

Spring Flowers – Llano, Texas
Copyright 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens hand-held. The exposure was taken at 105mm, f/4.5 for 1/2000th of a second at ISO 200 using a Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3 Beta 2. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Of course I was hard at work during the workshop. How could you even ask?

Hard at Work – Llano, Texas
Copyright 2010 Glenn Barlow Photography
Shot taken with a Nikon D300s at 200mm, f/4 for 1/200th of a second at ISO 200.

Filed under: Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon 5D Mark II, Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Photography, Texas Hill Country, Wildflowers

Texas Hill Country Self Portrait

Like most photographers, I’m a bit shy when it comes to standing on the other side of a camera. Few photographers have the talent of my friends Mark & Ray, both of whom create stunning self portraits. However, when the light is just right, even the most shy of landscape photographers can create a nice self portrait.

What? You were expecting me to use a soft box way up here?

Hill Country Self Portrait – Fredericksburg, Texas
Copyright 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 17-40mm f/4L USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 20mm, f/16 for 1/25th of a second at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer & 3-stop graduated neutral density filter. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3 Beta 2. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Filed under: Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon 5D Mark II, Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, Landscape Photography, Photography, Texas Hill Country, Texas Landscapes

Let Us Never Forget Who We Are!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. - And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Filed under: Photography Tagged: Independence Day, The Declaration of Independence

New Lightroom 3 Raw Workflow

As most of you know, Adobe recently released Lightroom 3. There are tons of blog posts, training videos and forum discussions on the Internet about the new features of Lightroom 3 so I won’t belabor the points here. What you may not know is that this new version is a major upgrade from Lightroom 2 and because of that, your Raw workflow may need to change. Mine certainly did.

Take this image for example, shot last week from the rim of Palo Duro Canyon near Wayside, Texas. The exposure is fairly well balanced but like most Raw files, it lacks contrast. In Lightroom 2, I would have worked my way down the various settings in the Develop module in the order that they were presented but my Lightroom 3 workflow has changed considerably.

I begin my Raw workflow by changing the Camera Calibration setting to one of the default values for a Canon 5D Mark II, usually Camera Standard. This tends to darken the image somewhat and adds some much needed contrast.

Next I use the new Lens Corrections settings and check the Enable Profile Corrections box which fixes any barrel or pincushion distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting problems inherent in my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. This is similar to what the well respected PTLens plugin from Tom Niemann does in Photoshop, although the effect in LR3 is more subtle.

Next I generally adjust the Tone Curve by setting the Point Curve to Strong Contrast which also adds contrast to the entire image. This also helps to broaden the tonal gradations in the image making the highlights brighter and the shadows darker. Make sure you check the histogram when making this change to avoid clipping in the highlights or shadows.

My next step is to adjust the Basic settings such as White Balance (usually set for Daylight depending upon the image), Clarity (which adds some wonderful mid-tone contrast) and Vibrance.

I find that the “Daylight” setting on my Canon 5D Mark II uses a white balance that is several hundred degrees too cool (4850K versus 5500K) by default for Texas. I generally adjust the white balance to somewhere between 5200K and 5500K in Lightroom to make the images match what I remember seeing. I’ve verified this in the field using a WhiBal gray card so I’m fairly confident that this is correct.

At this point in my Raw workflow, I’ll also adjust the Exposure, Recovery, Brightness and Contrast settings until I find the right exposure balance (lights and darks) and tone (color gradations) to fit the story I’m trying to tell with this image. I may spend as little as ten minutes on this or as much as several hours trying different settings until I achieve the look and feel I want.

My final “tweaks” to the image are done by adjusting the Hue, Saturation & Luminance settings. This is where the fine tuning is done to create drama in my images. I’ll generally change the Luminance values for several colors as shown in the screenshot below.

Small, incremental changes go a long way here, so I’m careful not to push things too far and end up with an image that looks unrealistic. I have enough trouble with folks that don’t live in Texas believing that our skies are actually this blue and our clouds this white.

The next step is purely optional but I will occasionally use the Graduated Filter or the Adjustment Brush to add drama to a shot. Like every other setting in the Develop module, small changes go along way here.

My final steps are done in the Detail pane where I’ll usually make some Sharpening and Noise Reduction changes before exporting the image for printing or the web.

These settings have changed considerably in Lightroom 3 so use caution when applying the same values you used in LR2. The Noise Reduction capabilities in Lightroom 3 have improved dramatically but by default no Luminance noise reduction is added to Raw images, so you’ll need to add at least a little for every landscape image. I generally add 10% – 15% to every landscape image that contains blue sky and white clouds. Even this small amount of noise reduction smooths out the pixelation found in the bright, high-contrast areas and makes the image look much more realistic.

Click on the image below for a larger version. The final results from Lightroom 3 are far superior to what I could achieve in LR2 and my round-trips to Photoshop are now a thing of the past for most landscape and nature images.

The features added to Lightroom 3 are substantial and I really feel sorry for those plug-in vendors like Nik Software, Noise Ninja and Alien Skin. The folks at Adobe have once again raised the usability bar in processing Raw images for photographers.

Palo Duro Canyon Evening – Wayside, Texas
Copyright 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on Aperture (Av) priority using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 28mm, f/16 for 1/8th of a second at ISO 100 with a Singh-Ray warming polarizer filter. Post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3. Click on the image above for a larger version.

Filed under: Photography Tagged: Adobe Lightroom 3, Canon, Canon 5D Mark II, Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Palo Duro Canyon, Photography, Raw Workflow, Texas High Plains, Texas Landscapes

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

French Garden Getaway For Teenagers

French family refurbished the old building with four split levels completely lined in silver birch. More of this teenage hideout is seen on Inthralld.

Win a FREE 30-Day Stock Photo Subscription Pack from 123RF.com! Participate here!

77% of dPS Readers Take A Camera Everywhere [POLL Results]

Last month we asked readers whether they took their camera with them everywhere in a poll. The results are in!

If you include the camera in your phone... 77% of the almost 20,000 people who responded take a camera with them everywhere.

What I find interesting is that we ran this exact same poll in January 2009 so we can track how things have changed over the last 4 years among our readers. Here are the 2009 results (the results were from around 18,000 readers at that time).

While the changes have only been subtle there are a few interesting observations to make.

Firstly – more people are relying upon the cameras in their phones to capture their everyday events. This is no wonder – back in 2009 the iPhone had been out for a couple of years but since then the camera in iPhone (and other phones) have improved significantly (in fact a segment of our readership ONLY use camera phones).

Secondly the rise in camera phone use has come at the expense of compact camera solutions and those who only took cameras on special occasions.

What surprised me most was the slight rise in those taking DSLRS everywhere because there’s been such a push of late from camera manufacturers to improve their offerings in the compact camera space.

How have your camera usage habits chanced in the last 4 years?

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

77% of dPS Readers Take A Camera Everywhere [POLL Results]