Archive for May, 2009

  • 19 Tutorials for Creating Beautiful HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imagery

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    HDR(High Dynamic Range) imaging is the process of taking several exposures and merging them together into one image. First, take a shot with normal exposure, then another with under-exposure and then overexpose a shot to capture the detail from the shadow. Then, merge all the photos together to create your HDR image, you will now see all the highlights that make HDR so unique and beautiful.

    For the most part, to create decent HDR images, it takes a good photographer, and a little knowledge of photo editing software like Photoshop or Photomatix. There are a lot of different techniques and tutorials for creating HDR images and you will find the best of them below.

    HDR Photoshop Effect Tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : HDR Photoshop Effect Tutorial.

    Description : This HDR Photoshop tutorial shows you an easy way to fake HDR photos in Photoshop. You don’t need to shoot into RAW or take multiple photos - one JPEG file is plenty.

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : Roman Flössler.

    How to Create Professional HDR Images

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : How to Create Professional HDR Images.

    Description : There are some things in the digital photography world that Photoshop can’t do better than most other programs. HDR turns out to be one of them. Photoshop CS2 has a built-in HDR assembler that, is capable of creating extremely realistic or extremely surreal HDR images.

    Image Editor : Photomatix & Photoshop.

    Tutorial Author : Ryan McGinnis.

    Gritty HDR Photo Effects

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : Gritty HDR Photo Effects.

    Description : Give your photos a grunge look with this popular Photoshop effect. Although this Photoshop effect is commonly referred as HDR photo effect, it is it can be done with regular, non-HDR photos.

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : Denny Tang.

    Merging HDR in Photoshop Tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : Merging HDR in Photoshop Tutorial.

    Description : In this tutorial you will learn the process of taking multiple exposures and merging them together, with Photoshop, into a single 32 bit image. Shoot normal exposure, then under-expose a shot to capture highlights and over-expose a shot to capture shadow detail. Finally, you will merge these photos together to produce a single image with a larger range of tones that can now show all the details in the shadows and highlights.

    Image Editor : Photomatix & Photoshop.

    Author : Colin Smith.

    Post Processing HDR Tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : Post Processing HDR Tutorial.

    Description : In this tutorial you will learn after you have created your HDR image how to spice it up with some professional photoshop tecniques.

    Image Editor : Photomatix & Photoshop.

    Author : thinsite.net.

    Layered HDR Tone Mapping

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : Layered HDR Tone Mapping.

    Description : This tutorial explains, step by step, how to achieve HDR pictures using layers and layers mask in Photoshop.

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : adidap.com/.

    How to easily fake an HDR effect in Photoshop

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : How to easily fake an HDR effect in Photoshop.

    Description : An easy to follow tutorial showing you how to create a HDR photo without the actual (time-taking) HDR process.

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : Kolnedra on Flickr/.

    HDR Style Results Using Layers in Photoshop

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : HDR Style Results Using Layers in Photoshop.

    Description : HDR is about collecting a series of shots taken on a tripod at different exposures and allowing photoshop to merge them together to make one perfectly exposed image.

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : Darren Rowse.

    Exposure Blending Tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : Exposure Blending Tutorial.

    Description : This tutorial will walk you through the basics of creating an HDR image by hand. All you need is a camera and photo editing software that supports layer masking (you can follow these steps in Photoshop).

    Image Editor : Photoshop.

    Author : Darren Rowse.

    HDR Tutorial by stuckincustoms.com

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : HDR Tutorial.

    Description : This is probably the most complete and indepth HDR tutorial you will read, it is split into three parts, and certainly worth your time.

    Image Editor : Photomatix or Photoshop.

    Author : Trey Ratcliff.

    HDR Tutorial with Photomatix

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : HDR Tutorial with Photomatix.

    Description : The purpose of HDR photography is to show a higher range of detail than could ever be possible from a single image, this tutorial shows you how to obtain this using Photomatix.

    Image Editor : Photomatix.

    Author : Dan Norcott.

    How to create HDR Photos - HDR/Photomatix tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : How to create HDR Photos - HDR/Photomatix tutorial .

    Description : The reality, of HDR, is that just about anyone can take and process an HDR photo with most cameras and proper HDR software. In this tutorial you will go through the steps necessary to take your very own HDR photo and process it like a pro.

    Image Editor : Photomatix.

    Author : Fabio Sasso.

    HDR 101.com Tutorial

    HDR Photoshop Tutorial

    Tut URL : HDR 101.com Tutorial.

    Description : This is a basic, standard, step by step tutorial of how to make an HDR Image.(Note: this tutorial is based on building an HDR image from 7 different shots), with Photomatix (used for Generating HDR and Tone Mapping) and Photoshop CS2 (for retouching only).

    Image Editor : Photomatix & Photoshop.

    Author : HDR101.com.

    Here are some Video Tutorials

  • And you think your garbage is overflowing?

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    the other morning i walked out into our front garden to find various plastic bags, sweet wrappers and a cigarette packet strewn amongst the flower beds, either thrown from the pavement by a random lazy bastard or blown over the gate from the street by wind. needless to say it really really pissed me off to the point where i was muttering under my breath. a few hours later - by coincidence - i found the photo above which i’d bookmarked last year of a polluted river in indonesia and immediately felt thankful, and then pretty depressed.

    remember, the photos below aren’t unique. there are many, many places on earth where the infrastructure needed to ensure that such seemingly basic systems are put in place either just don’t exist or are compromised for various reasons - the main one being poverty.  a huge amount of people have been born into this kind of environment and subsequently know nothing else than to walk out of their homes to be faced with seas of litter and be subjected to a serious threat to their health on a daily basis. 

    note: these photos aren’t necessarily a representation of the areas today. hopefully they’ve since been cleaned up.

    naples, italy, early 2008

    [above] naples is an unlikely place to see streets covered in litter but for over a decade the area has been victim to a ‘garbage crisis’ resulting from the actions of the camorra, the local mafia, who control the local garbage industry. read more here. i believe this situation has been cleaned up for the time being due to pressure from the eu.  

    estero de paco, manila, philippines

    [above] according to photographer dennis villegas, ‘the garbage in the river (estero de paco) has become so thick that rats are able to run on top of it - chased by cats. the river and its surrounding areas has a very hideous odor’. apparently the ‘pasig river rehabilitation commission’ plan to rid the river of litter by moving all homes so that they sit more than 3 metres from the river bank. read more here.

    dharavi, mumbai, india

    [above] ‘because water in mumbai, india is prohibitively expensive, many residents of this slum rely on leaks found - or created - in the massive tubes that carry water to more affluent neighborhoods. the poor of the city avoid the garbage and human waste surrounding their dwellings by walking on top of the pipelines’. read more here

    citarum river, west java, indonesia

    [above] ‘rapid urbanisation over the last 20 years has seen a rise in untreated household sewage, solid waste and industrial effluents, affecting public health and threatening the livelihood of poor fishing families. a new industry has sprung up - collecting the plastic waste in the river for recycling’. more here,

    yoff, dakar, senegal

    yoff is a town in dakar. that’s all i know, apart from the fact that it’s heavily polluted.

  • World’s Top 7 Creepiest Places

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    Manchac Swamp, Louisiana

    As your boat pushes out into the swamp by torchlight, ancient cypress trees and Spanish moss drape across the water. That far-off howl you hear might just be the rou-ga-rou, the Cajun version of the Wolfman.

    The Manchac Swamp, a.k.a. the “haunted swamp,” near New Orleans is a Southern Gothic fan’s dream.

    An imprisoned voodoo queen is said to have cast a curse on these watery surroundings around the turn of the last century, resulting in the disappearance of three hamlets in a hurricane in 1915.

     

    Bran Castle, Bran, Romania


    A vertiginous hilltop climb leads to a storybook castle that seems to have no horizontal surfaces: Endless stairways and towers are all that is visible. Inside, underground passageways connect dozens of rooms containing rococo antiques and suits of armor.

    All that’s missing from Dracula’s Castle, as Bran Castle is known, is a stormy night and a lightning bolt to illuminate the scene.

    A cloud of legend, local folklore, and literary pedigree hang over the dramatic fortress, perched 200 feet above the Romanian town of Bran.

    The castle has certainly reaped a PR bonanza as the setting for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with a reported 450,000 visitors a year—not bad for an isolated spot in Eastern Europe.

    The name comes from the notoriously sadistic tyrant Vlad the Impaler, known as Vlad Dracula, who is said to have used the castle as an occasional base of operations.

    Vlad earned his nickname by hoisting tens of thousands of enemies on stakes.

     

    Paris Catacombs, Paris, France

    Bones and skulls are stacked on either side of a narrow corridor like merchandise at a warehouse—a lot of merchandise.

    The air is close and cool, with just a hint of decomposition, and there’s rude graffiti dating from the French Revolution, mainly about the king and the feeble nobility. Once inside, you can easily see why Victor Hugo and Anne Rice have set stories in Paris’s famous Catacombs.

    Snaking some 187 miles through underground passages around the city, only a tiny portion is open to the public—it’s said that the rest is patroled by the legendary cataflics, a special underground police force.

    Though guided tours are available, it’s more creepy and effective to go on your own, when it’s just you and millions of bones lit by the occasional low-wattage bulb.

     

    Mary King’s Close, Edinburgh, Scotland


    Hidden below Edinburgh’s medieval Old Town is a series of subterranean streets with an unsavory past.

    Mary King’s Close is where plague victims were quarantined and left to die in the 17th century, and paranormal activity abounds down there.

    You might, for instance, feel some gentle tugging at your hands and legs by an unseen force. The cause is believed to be the ghost of Annie, a young girl abandoned by her parents in 1645.

    More than a hundred years later, in classic horror-tale fashion, a grand new building was constructed over Mary King’s Close, leaving the streets, including the plague ghosts, intact underground.

     

    Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine

    Walk through the abandoned town of Pripyat in the Ukraine, and you’ll find a large-scale crime scene abandoned in a hurry: A nursery full of children’s shoes, and apartment complexes with the morning newspaper, dated April 28, 1986, open on the breakfast table.

    Two days before, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, minutes away, melted down, but it took 48 hours for the authorities to alert locals and clear them out of the world’s biggest nuclear disaster site.

    Now that radiation levels are safe for short-term exposure, Chernobyl’s nuclear complex has become an unlikely tourist attraction since opening to visitors in 2002.

    The power complex is at the center of the 20-mile-radius “Exclusion Zone,” a regrown area of forests now populated by wolves and bears. Reactor #4 is the star of this sad show, today sheathed in a concrete and lead sarcophagus 200 feet high.

     

    Winchester House, San Jose, California

    The Winchester “Mystery” House is a colossal construction built on a foundation of superstition. It’s said that Sarah Winchester, heiress to the arms company, was told by a soothsayer that the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles would haunt her unless she moved from Connecticut to the West and built a house that could never be finished in her lifetime.

    Construction started in 1884 in San Jose, California, and kept going nonstop for 38 years until her death.

    Now the house’s 160 rooms are haunted by her madness and packed with bizarre details: Staircases go straight into the ceiling, doors open onto blank walls, spider motifs abound, and candelabras, coat hooks, and steps are arranged in multiples of 13.

    Reports of banging doors, footsteps in the night, moving lights, and doorknobs turning of their own accord have been occurring since the house was opened to the public.

     

    Easter Island, Chile

    One of the most unnerving things about the 30-foot carved heads that dot Easter island is that they’re not looking out at you as you arrive; the famous unsmiling moai sculptures look inward from the sea, as if guilty of some crime.

    Perhaps it has something to do with the virtual disappearance of the people who made them. At only 63 square miles, tiny Easter Island is home to more mystery for its size than just about anyplace else on earth.

    The Rapa Nui people, nearly extinct a century ago but flourishing now, kept no written records of how they moved the enormous moai around the island, sometimes as far as 14 miles, from the volcanic quarry where they were carved.

    We like the theory that UFOs were behind it all. 

  • Wolverine Drawings

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  • 24 Impressive Dark And Light Photos

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    Amazing mix of dark and light photos:

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  • Animals Protecting Their Young

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    Animals Protecting Its Young
    The word “animal” comes from the Latin word animale, neuter of animalis, and is derived from anima, meaning vital breath or soul. In everyday colloquial usage, the word usually refers to non-human animals. The biological definition of the word refers to all members of the Kingdom Animalia, including humans. Here are some collected photos we wanted to share them with you.

    The Monkey Protecting Its Young

    The Monkey Protecting Its Young

    The Monkey Protecting Its Young

    The Monkey Protecting Its Young

    The Monkey Protecting Its Young

    The Dog And The Squirrel

    The Dog Protecting Its Young

    The Dog Protecting Its Young

    The Dog Protecting Its Young

    The Dog Protecting Its Young

    The Dog Protecting Its Young

    Here are some videos in which Animals protect their young

  • 30 Animal Photos That Will Make You Smile

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    “Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”

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