Notre Dame « Places 2 Explore

Paris…my favorite city in the world. Its been a long while since my last visit. Hope to be back soon. I had an old shot before my HDR days and did a single raw conversion…then added a few textures. I love the textured effect. I have many people ask how to add a texture….there are a few ways depending on what software you have. I have CS5. Here is a quick method…

1. Open your picture in Photoshop

2. Drag your textured file on top of the photo to place the picture.

3. Transform the texture to equal the photo size

4. Click your desired Layered method from the drop down menu…I use “Overlay” 98% of the time…then may modify the fill amount (pic below is just ref)

And that is it! A textured photo! The shot above I added three textures and masked certain areas. But the quick method will get you started! Hopefully!! have fun!

NIKON D300, Nikon 18-200 VR, HDR in Photomatix

Here is another shot from last week in Paris. I had just taken the tour bus from Eiffel Tower over to Notre Dame. I was looking for different angles and decided to take walk around the site. It was quite chilly and as I walked along the waterway I kept looking back trying to see what would be the best shot. This one caught my eye!

When taking pictures of landscape (buildings,etc..) when its cloudy or gray out…pictures can just turn out ok. We all remember the shots with nice blue skies and puffy clouds…the cloudy day shots dont stick out in our minds too much. HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a great solution! I have been enjoying this style more and more. You will see more shots like this in future posts. I’m certain that you can google and learn more about it…very amazing if you get the shot right. HDR’s can look artistic or real…it all depends what you prefer. I took this shot hand held using 5 exposures. Then used Photomatix (software) to produce the HDR. Even though it was not the perfect day…the HDR brought out the shadows nicely!

Maybe one day in the future I will post my techniques and tips. If you are curious, you can email me and I would be glad to help! ptalke@talkephotography.com