Ye Ole Print Shop

Here's an image I made of the print shop used by the Cloister in Ephrata. One of the Society's outstanding contributions to its communities was the steady flow of books, broadsides, and tracts that rolled off its printing presses. I used 3 images merged together in Photoshop CC. Then processed in Aurora HDR Pro. I have been experimenting with blending Source Image > Custom Textures in this program with a vast array of colored and textured backgrounds I used in my portrait studio. I am happy with the effects I can achieve to give my work its own style and look. I will do a tutorial on that soon.

Niagara River Morning

Image of a very calm and reflective Niagara river. This is shot from the north west corner of Grand Island looking towards Niagara Falls. Part of a 30 mile bicycle ride I stopped at this overlook and snapped this image because I rarely see the river this calm.

Susquehanna High

A beautiful view of the Susquehanna river.

Retouching Wildlife Eyes

I have this great image of a bald eagle close up. As you can see I have some great detail in my subjects eye already, but what if I want to go a step further and make that eye realistic and give it a little pop.

Most of us have been taught to add a layer and use a round brush with white and paint a dot to make a catch light effect and thus give the eye a bit of sparkle. This technique is fine as long as you don't look too close. My background in painting tells me I need more, more realism.

Add another layer mask then choose a sky color from the color picker.

Now paint a little squiggle in an arch motion in the eye like this.

Now go to filters> Gaussian blur. I use about 4.5 - 5 to soften my images. Also at this time drop down to the previous layer and do the same to the catch light dot we added at the beginning.

Now go back to the the blue layer and reduce the opacity. This adds roundness and transparency to the eye.

Here's the final image. Although the orinal image was acceptable, I like the added effect. Now if you're one of those people that frown on retouching any wildlife image then please disregard this article.

Amish Country

Amish farmer still using mules to hay. His little dog leads the way. I added some painterly effects to enhance the sky.

Strasburg Covered Bridge

I like to photograph covered bridges in case you haven't noticed. One of the attractions for me is their interesting history and probably the fact there are no covered bridges where I live. Although the bridges seem to look all the same, each one is very different from the other, be it construction, color, condition or location. When you walk through one of these magnificent bridges it's like walking back through time. You can just feel the history. Some are even haunted with great stories behind them. Either way they are a great piece of americana.

Wilbur Buds

In Lititz, Pa, H.O. Wilbur and Sons produced their first batch of Wilbur Buds back in 1894.

They developed a technique for depositing specially blended chocolates into a mould that resembled a flower bud and they called them Wilbur Buds.

The company now specializes in all kinds of molded chocolates and distributes them world wide.