Happy New Year my Softtail Brothas n Sistas!!
82 degree day in SoCal!!

First... mine
Then from Rock Store
then my friendz'









HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM SOCAL!!!!!!!!

 

82 degrees?! Way to start the new year off right! Nice pics...thanks for sharing!

 

Sure, rub it in!! Lol...Enjoy your great weather!! Happy New Year!!

 

Went out riding today as well though I didn't take that many photos... The place wasn't that crowded yet since the band was still setting up. Some were also delayed because of a bike accident on the highway on the way down to this saloon which is in the middle of nowhere between Las Vegas and the California border.

Below are two photos, the first, my bike of course.

 

Very nice! It was a fridged 76 here.

 

Wow! Great pics! I'm assuming you use Photoshop to enhance them? How do you do it?

 

Yeah.... Blustery near 80 today here...

 

I went riding too. I lost the foot pedal for my clutch rolling down sunset blvd. A MacGyver fix got me home. Heading out again tomorrow.

 

In this case most of the work was done with a small-stand alone program called Photomatix 3. The first photo was a single frame that was imported into Photomatix and tonemapped.

The second photo is actually three frames merged into a single photo using Photomatix as well. By "braketing" three frames or shooting at different apperature settings, one frame can be exposed for the highlights (sky), the subject, and the shadows. I would have done this for the first photo as well, but I just set the camera on the ground without looking through the viewfinder and bracketing does not work well for moving people anyway. In hindsight, it would not have mattered since I took the people out later. I usually play with the programs sliders, but in this case I used one of the presets for a "painterly" look. No real time involved so far.

Then both the first and second photo were exported into Lightroom 2 (I don't own Lightroom 3) where the photos were tweaked and then exported to Adobe Photoshop CS4.

In the first photo, I used CS4 (I don't own CS5) to remove three people from behind my bike and for watermarking--this took the most work of all the photos. I may just ride out there again and try to retake the photo hoping people aren't hanging around outside.

In the second photo, I used CS4 to remove a cable from the sky, to remove dirt spots because my lens was dirty, and to watermark the photo. Since I usually shoot sports more often, I get kind of lazy when it comes to cleaning the lens; however, I should have known better especially since I parked my bike in some dust and let the air out of the Shotgun Shocks.

In short, I am more of a Lightroom person and for those who don't know it, the newer version is supposed to be able to add watermarks and it is a lot cheaper than something like CS5. I may upgrade after CS6 is released; however, that probably won't be until after Windows releases the final version of its new OS.

 

Whats up Brother! Looks like a blast. Went on a little cruise with Story808 and xJayx. I needed to get out in the Island sun after the last month on the Mainland.

Happy New Years Bro!