Today in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle , Wendy and I decided we'd had enough and took a relaxing ride to Goat Island. We stopped at the parking area by the three sister's island and fed the birds. We had all kinds of varieties come down and feed right from her hand. I was hoping a cardinal would come in close but no such luck. It was fun to watch them and we had a great time.

Birding... for the fun of it.

Birds make interesting and beautiful subjects. I shot this cardinal yesterday. Such a magnificent bird. This male decided to come closer and check me out. Maybe looking for some food or just checking to see if I was a threat. Either way he was close enough to capture these wonderful images of him. By intentionally blurring out the background it gives my subject good separation and adds dimension to my image. Click on image to enlarge.

Happy Holidays

Season's Greetings from The Portrait Gallery. Photoshop isn't just for photos anymore. I made this card entirely from scratch in photoshop. Adobe tools allow you to use your imagination with no limits. It is such a fascinating program to use. The Portrait Gallery will be closed December 24th til Jan. 02, 2009 for the holidays and maintenance shut down. If you are planning ordering prints and need them for Christmas you better get your orders in soon. The dead line is December 22. Please have a happy and safe holiday season. Thank you for all your business. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.

Congratulations to...

Steven McGinnis and Cynthia Sweney announcing their engagement and plan a June 2009 wedding. They came in for portraits and had a great time. A fun couple and definitely in love. We will be looking forward to shooting their wedding.

Nikon D3... WoW factor is?

The subject matter of this image is nothing spectacular. Just an average Christmas tree ornament. What is spectacular is the fact that this image was hand held ( no tripod ) and shot at iso 25,600 and in jpg. format. Some noise reduction and sharpening was added in NX2. Click on image to enlarge.

Grungy and Grainy Technique

The latest look in photographs is the grungy and grainy look. You can achieve this effect in many ways. You can buy an expensive software program for hundreds of dollars or learn how to do it for free. This effect is most likely a fad and will disappear in time, but if you want to keep up with the trends and can’t run out and buy the latest and greatest software program to do this technique. All you need is CS3 and a few minutes of your time. Open your image document in CS3 and in your layers palette make a duplicate layer of the original image.

Now with your duplicate layer active click Filters on the tool bar at the top and Convert for Smart Filters.

This will give you the ability to go back and readjust your image later if needed. Now click on Image>Adjustments> Shadow/Highlights.

Move the shadows slider to the right to about 75-80. Then move the Highlights slider to the right to about 25 and click ok.

In the layers palette click create a new layers adjustment and then click Black and White.

The general default black and white grayscale will be fine here, click ok. Now make this an overlay instead of normal layer.

The image now changes back to color. Now create another adjustment layer and do the Black and White again. This time you need to select your preference from the drop down menu. Try all the settings and see what you like best. In this case I chose the green filter and clicked ok.

Change this layer to overlay also. That is good for the grunge now add some grain. Make a new layer.

Use your paint bucket tool and cover the entire image with a nice neutral gray like the gray in the desk top background.

Go to filters and Add Noise.

Set the slider to about 25-35. Select Gaussian and Monochromatic and click ok.

Now reduce to opacity of this layer down to about 29% and change it to overlay.

For one last final touch go to Filters>Distort>Lens Correction.

Slide the vignette slider all the way to the left to darken and click ok.

Your finished image should look like this.

If it doesn’t you can go back and readjust any layer until you get the desired effect. Experiment with this technique and develop your own style. Landscapes may need less or more depending on your exposures and tastes.

Photo Restoration

This restoration was in fairly good shape except for the color fade on it. The client needs us to enlarge it from a 3x3 in. print to an 8x8 in. print. The color could be restored but would be time consuming and costly so we decided to go with a sepia toned print. This will keep our period look and be cost effective . After enlarging and re toning the image, it had some minor spotting that needed cloned out and the image is ready to print. Click to enlarge.