Greg Molyneux Photography

Tag: color efex pro 4

  • Callery pears and a little bit of whimsy

    A high key photograph featuring a flowering callery pear tree in Spring. Warm pastel colors and a loose film grain give this photograph a soft whimsical feel.
    Callery pears and a little bit of whimsy — 40mm | f/3.5 | ISO 100 | EXP 1/125

    After work yesterday I was milling about my front yard taking in the fresh blossoms and the last of the late day sun. Three cheers for later sunsets. At this early stage of Spring my two callery pear trees are in their full blooming glory. As the fading light of golden hour was dancing on the blossoms I made a quick shot with my mobile phone for Instagram. Inspired, I thought let me grab my camera and make an even better picture.

    Racing against fading light I grabbed my Canon, affixed my 40mm pancake, and fired off some shots. Sticking with a similar vibe from the cell phone photograph, I kept my lens pointed skyward, selectively focusing on the branch and blossoms at the bottom left of the capture. When it came time for post-processing I was running through some packaged presets in Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4. I happily settled on the film grain preset. I felt the high key treatment really brought out the pastels and subtle hints of yellow and gold from the departing sun, and the grain brought an appropriately aged feel. This type of photograph is a departure from my norm—making it all the more worthwhile. I hope you enjoy.

  • Still worth it

    An HDR photograph taken over a windswept marsh on a cold winter's day at sunset along Cedar Run Dock Road. The photograph features a soft diffuse light.
    Still worth it — 14mm | f/8 | ISO 100 | 7 Bracketed Exposures

    Twilight was cold. And windy. And frankly the sky was largely meh—a ho-hum vestige at best. Did I mention it was windy? And cold?

    Wind was such a factor I was concerned about camera shake with my exposures. Were it to wind up being an issue it would have been further compounded as I was taking seven bracketed exposures to boost dynamic range. Looking at my images back at the house revealed the trusty tripod did its work and kept the images clean and clear. Seriously, I can’t stress the importance of a sturdy tripod enough; particularly if landscape photography is going to be your thing.

    Back home I took a little departure from my standard post-processing workflow. After some initial tweaks to the seven exposures in Lightroom, I imported the images into Photomatix for merging. After re-importing a single image back to Lightroom I edited to taste further, bringing about a more representative dynamic range. It’s here where I departed from the status quo and took it an extra step. Bringing the image over to Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro 4 I applied the Duplex filter to make the final image more diffuse and a touch warmer.

    I’m pleased with the result—maximizing the most of an otherwise ordinary sunset.

    I did have some company while I was out there. I ran into a gentlemen cruising about Cedar Run Dock Road in his van taking sunset snapshots. We chatted for a few minutes, talked about good spots, a sunset a few days back, and then went on about our business. It’s always good to see other people out and about enjoying and capturing nature. It’s not a bad way to pass the time.