Great to see another blogger with a camera! I look forward to seeing all your stuff there - I'll link to your blog from mine soon! (So all six of my readers can go see you too! )
I hate to ask this but I must...what does BLOG mean? I'm just not familiar with that word but am seeing it around the forum.. Thanks and best, Gaye
It's like a journal or an open diary. Mine is a photoblog so it's a journal on all things photography related. The thing with a blog compared to a regular webpage is that people get to leave comments so it's very community oriented.
Gaye, a web log also changes often, but you can get to all the past links through a calendar like archive (Mike - I like your horiz. calendar.) And you can refer to just one particular entry, and the link doesn't change. So when you say interesting things, or post cool pictures, other bloggers will link to you. Eventually it gets onto cable news where they will read your blog from a computer screen and call it news. You can publish a blog for free, (or almost free with more features) with only a little bit of effort. Here is a popular freebie.
RAW so everything is off. Color space II (Adobe). Auto WB -1. Manual w/ spot meter the majority of the time.
Thanks-- now I understand it.... and now I want to make a photoblog...so will think about that this week.... maybe I can follow the steps in the link you sent, Chris. And Chris, I sure enjoy your many avatars. You look like you just came out of the pool in this one... I'm a swimmer so that thought came to me when I saw it. Your avatars are great! I may be back with questions about how to make the BLOG. Best to you and thanks very much! Gaye
Typical workflow is convert from RAW with Nikon View into Photoshop 7. Sometimes I'll use Nikon View to bump the exposure up or down but I save the rest of the adjustments for PS. Once it's exported I do level and curve to adjust for overall brightness and contrast (small S curve), and then color balance for WB if needed (moreso for low light and indoor shots). If it's something I'm prepping for print then I'll make a grey overlay and do a dodge/burn (about a third of the pics in the gallery were D&B). Then it's just resize, sRGB convert, sharpen w/ USM, and save for web.
50% grey overlay. Make a new layer and fill it with 50% grey. Change blend from normal to overlay. Use the dodge/burn tool on the overlay itselt and not the background layer. That way you're working off an adjustment layer instead of dodge/burning actual pixels, much smoother. You can also change the layer opacity to adjust the overall effect. I picked it up at a workshop. I don't have any darkroom experience, but bodge & burn is an old tool for selectively brightening and darkening exposure in areas of your shot. Say you have a face and want to bring it out more. You could dodge the eyes, forehead, cheekbones, and lips to emphasize features, then burn the sides of the face and neck to darken and give it more pop. Same with hair to give it more life. Can also burn the edges and corners for a vignette effect. Just don't get too carried away. Keep your brush sizes big and around 10% exposure. The best processing is the stuff you can't see.
I ended up using this site. I like it. I didn't have to play with anything and I think it turned out okay. My blog site is http://gbenic.blogspot.com/. If anyone would share their thoughts with me, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
