Austin, TX – Motocross on Fire

One more shot from my visit to the awesome Del Valle MX Park in Austin, TX.  I was finishing up some more HDR’s from the track.  I now have about 30 HDR shots up…click here…Talke Photography.  I am really liking sports in HDR.  I was just thinking of some cool ideas on how to treat one of the HDR’s and thought…why not add a texture or two?   With the dirt track, I knew it had to have a redish feel to it.  I threw in about 7 textures into Adobe Bridge and played around.    The shot above is using three textures (Tan, Brown and redish).  I went back and selectively masked each one to get the desired effect.   I wanted color to show, but still be semi-textured.  Also I wanted to make sure the racers eyes showed up a bit.   I think that is the key to the shot.   Banking around a turn and looking to see what lies ahead.  Sweet!   I have more ideas on treatment of these action shots…I’ll work on em soon!  I aded this shot into the IPad Wallpapers section on my site…I will be adding about 25 more shots this weekend!  Look for em soon!

The things you can do with Photoshop!  I really need to learn more!   I just received my copy of CS5 (upgrade), but most of my plug-ins (NIK Software) are not upgraded yet…so I cannot fully use it.  I will make a note on it soon.  The content aware in CS5 rocks!!   I recently joined Kelby Training /NAPP and hoe to learn some more tricks.  They are the best resources around for photography lessons!   Kudos to Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski!!  Gotta love photography…a never ending learning process!

SINGLE RAW HDR:  So I have received a few questions on how I process my Single Raw HDR’s  There are a few ways…this is my way.  It is simple and easy!

1) Make 5 copies of your RAW file you plan to make into and HDR

2) Bring them into Photomatix

3) It will show all exposures at “0”.  Convert each exposure to +2, +1, 0, -1, -2

4) Tone map from there and handle via your normal processing!

Not technical at all.    Have fun!

Talke Photography Settings:

• Camera:  Nikon D300
• Lens: Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR
• Setting: Aperture  Mode
• Focal Length: 150.0mm
• ISO: 200
• Exposure:  1/1000 – Single RAW HDR  (+2 to -2)
• Aperture:  f/4.0
• Gear:  Hand Held
• Post Process: Adobe CS4, Photomatix, Viveza, 3 Textures