Sean Duggan Blog

The Showgirl and the Tourist

The Showgirl and the Tourist [Diana Camera]
Las Vegas, March 26, 2007
(click in the image to see it bigger)

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Featured Workshop

Real World Digital Photography I: June 24 – June 30, 2007
The Maine Photographic Workshops

This week's featured workshop is two months away and there are only 3 spaces left. If you're interested in a week of learning creative digital photography, digital darkroom workflow and Photoshop techniques, then consider joining me on the beautiful coast of Maine for my Real World Digital Photography I workshop (there is also a level II version in late September that builds on what is covered in the first class).The workshop draws on concepts and techniques, both photographic and those in the digital darkroom, that are covered the book Real World Digital Photography that I co-authored with Katrin Eismann and Tim Grey. Additionally, we'll be covering new developments, such as Photoshop Lightroom. In the  digital lab each student will have a Macintosh computer loaded with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. In addition to our time exploring digital workflow and creative image enhancement techniques, we'll also have photo excursions during the week for practicing creative camera and exposure techniques at interesting nearby locations. Click the class title above to register.

The Amazing Thurston!

Mannequin Magic [Diana Camera]
March 26, 2007  Las Vegas
(click in the image for a larger version)

Taken with a plastic Diana camera just about a month ago during my second March sojourn to Las Vegas. I just love kitschy displays like this.

At the moment I have the mother of all backlogs in terms of Holga, Diana and pinhole negatives that need scanning (and 6 more processed rolls from the Hawaii trip are due to arrive this week). Work, work and more work is keeping me from setting aside quality time with the scanner. Hopefully my schedule will lighten up in another month or so and I can delve into the stack of tempting negatives.

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Featured Workshop

Real World Digital Photography I:June 24 – June 30, 2007
The Maine Photographic Workshops

This week's featured workshop is two months away and there are only 3 spaces left. If you're interested in a week of learning creative digital photography, digital darkroom workflow and Photoshop techniques, then consider joining me on the beautiful coast of Maine for my Real World Digital Photography I workshop (there is also a level II version in late September that builds on what is covered in the first class).The workshop draws on concepts and techniques, both photographic and those in the digital darkroom, that are covered the book Real World Digital Photography that I co-authored with Katrin Eismann and Tim Grey. Additionally, we'll be covering new developments, such as Photoshop Lightroom. In the  digital lab each student will have a Macintosh computer loaded with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. In addition to our time exploring digital workflow and creative image enhancement techniques, we'll also have photo excursions during the week for practicing creative camera and exposure techniques at interesting nearby locations. Click the class title above to register.

Two Perfect Trees

Kualoa Point & Mokolii Island  [Canon 5D]
O'ahu, Hawai'i
(Larger is Better: click in the image to see it bigger)

Taken a little over a week ago as I was driving along the windward side of O'ahu. I came around a bend in the road and saw these two trees framing Mokolii Island so perfectly that I had to stop the car and explore the photographic possibilities. Even though it was off and on rain showers, I got the tripod out of the trunk and set up for a few shots (taking the camera off the tripod and tucking it into my coat when the rain came down).

This is a blend of four separate exposures automatically stitched together using the new and improved Photomerge feature in Photoshop CS3. If you have ever used this feature in version CS or CS2, you know that sometimes it worked great and other times not so great, with odd misalignments and blending voodoo. Of course, the more tweaking you did in the Photomerge dialog, the better the result, but the tweaks were not that intuitive or easy to do. The new version, however, is pretty amazing. I've done several of these with the new incarnation of Photomerge and the results have been great every time...wonderful exposure and alignment blending. And even though this one was taken on a tripod, I have had equally good results with hand-held shots, too.

One thing about this scene that is clear, especially if you have ever been to this place: Whoever planted those trees had vision!

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Featured Workshop

The Creative Digital Darkroom: July 29 – August 4, 2007 Santa Fe Workshops

This week's featured workshop is still a ways off, but if you're interested in a week of creative Photoshop and digital photography (including panoramas and HDR), then consider joining me in Santa Fe, New Mexico this summer for my Creative Digital Darkroom workshop.The workshop is based on concepts, philosophies and techniques that are covered the book I am currently finishing up with Katrin Eismann, The Creative Digital Darkroom, due out this fall from O'Reilly Media, Inc. The digital darkroom lab at the Santa Fe Workshops is one of the best I have ever taught in. Each student has a G5 Mac with a cinema display with access to an HP Designjet pigment printer. And, although I can't guarantee it at this time, my guess is that Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom will be installed on the computers for this class. We'll have two photo excursions during the week for practicing creative camera and exposure techniques at interesting nearby locations.

Never Found

Chief Photographer's Mate  [Canon 5D]
Honolulu, Hawaii
(click in the image for a larger version)

This was taken last week at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. In addition to being a military cemetery, there is also a huge memorial to the missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It is laid out as an ascending terrace of steps flanked by small, walled courtyards. On the interior and exterior surfaces of these walls are carved the names of service members who perished in those wars and who were never found.

By some chance coincidence, on the first wall that I approached, in the U.S. Navy World War II section, the word "PHOTOGRAPHER" caught my eye and I saw the inscription for Luke J. Durante, Chief Photographer's Mate. I wondered how Luke got interested in photography. Was it a hobby of his before he joined the Navy, or was he simply assigned to the job of chief photographer's mate? Were the photos he took routine documentary images of naval subjects, or did he also explore other types of compositions, too? Or were his duties limited to processing film and making prints in the darkroom? Later in the week I visited a museum at Pearl Harbor on the submarine service and saw a camera that had been specially modified to photograph through the periscope and I thought of Luke J. Durante again. Was he on a ship or a sub?

The National Cemetery of the Pacific, located inside an ancient crater called the Punchbowl with panoramic views of Honolulu and Diamond Head, is a beautiful location, dotted with majestic trees and lush, green grass. But, as with all such memorials to war dead, it is also a very sobering place. To see the sheer truth of numbers made real by those tens of thousands of chiseled names, and to contemplate the everyday human reality of the lives, hopes and dreams of the individuals behind those names, and those who loved them and who grieved their loss, is to travel along a somber path.

Layers Photoshop Tutorial

Time to Burn
Layers Magazine Photoshop Tutorial
(download links below)

For the past five years I have written the Photoshop tutorial column for Layers Magazine (for the first two and a half years it was MacDesign). Layers is a very cool magazine covering creative software from Adobe Systems. The magazine comes out bi-monthly and, in addition to Photoshop, it covers Adobe's most popular creative programs (InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Lightroom, Acrobat & After Effects), as well as other news and features related to the creative design, production and photographic communities. It's published by from the same folks who publish Photoshop User and put on the ever popular PhotoshopWorld twice a year.

Today's post represents the debut on this blog of my Layers Photoshop columns in PDF format. I will be posting them periodically (approximately every month or two), along with the images that you need to work through the tutorial on your own. The first tutorial is from the Jan/Feb 2007 issue. Please note that my schedule is pretty full and I am not available to provide email tech support for these tutorials.

This tutorial is about the photographic setup for an intentional collage and covers the steps I used to take the three source images seen below and collage them into the final image (shown above).

Below are the links to download the tutorial files. You will need to either unzip or unstuff the image files; I have posted both a .zip and a .sitx version of the image files (both contain the same files).

Layers Jan/Feb 2007 Photoshop Tutorial

Tutorial Image Files (ZIP version)

Tutorial Image Files (SITX version)

Copyright Info: These images are only for your use in completing this tutorial.
They may not be used for any other purpose.

Harbor Geometry

Harbor Geometry  [Canon 5D]
Honolulu, Hawaii  April 11, 2007
(click in the image for a larger view)

Sometimes a good blue is just impossible to resist.

My apologies for the long delay since my last post (and for the fact that I haven't yet posted the promised Layers Photoshop tutorial...I'll get to that this weekend). Work, work and more work has kept me quite busy in other areas lately.

I just returned from a week in Hawaii (all on O'ahu). I went there to teach a couple of classes at the Pacific New Media Center of the Outreach College at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I had a few extra days to explore the island and, of course, many photographic pixels were generated, as well as some rolls of 120 film that traversed the rollers in my Diana toy camera and ZeroImage pinhole camera. Some of these images will no doubt make their way to this venue over the course of the next several weeks. Aloha!

HDR Motion VooDoo

Everyone was in a hurry to indulge...  [Canon 5D, HDR]
Las Vegas, March 26, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

Here's another example of HDR, this time with motion in the shot. If you click in the image to see the larger view, you can see the posterized color trails left by the moving cars and taxis. As I mentioned in the previous post, normally with HDR, you want to try and photograph a scene with no motion at all, because anything that is moving, such as clouds passing across the sky or swaying tree branches, leave strange ghosting and mis-registration artifacts in the image. Typically this is not something you want in a fine landscape or still life photograph. But in this case, the motion artifacts fit the subject quite well. They convey the excitement and fast-pace of a busy Las Vegas hotel.

I took another shot at the Bellagio of taxis exiting the underground garage that shows these bright color light trails even better.This seems to only show up when there are very bright lights (headlights in this case) moving during the different exposures. This sort of obvious processing artifact would be totally unacceptable in many types of images, but for night photos of Las Vegas, I think they actually add something interesting to the images. Both of these photos were made from six exposures each.

And lo, the taxis did come from underneath the earth...

The PDF tutorial from one of my Layers magazine articles won't be posted until after Easter weekend...probably on Monday night (4/9).

In the Land of Excessive Excess

Bellagio Entrance  [Canon 5D, HDR Image]
Las Vegas, March 26, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

While in Las Vegas last week, I took the opportunity to create some HDR (high dynamic range) night exposures. The main reason I was doing this was for some example images in a new book project (The Creative Digital Darkroom, due out in the fall) and I needed to show how movement in an HDR composite, normally an undesirable situation for this process (usually you want a super still, still life), is not necessarily a bad thing and can sometimes create interesting effects. This shot is from the end of my evening walk and while it does not have any movement in it, I liked the way it turned out (one with motion will be posted in the next day or so). It is the entrance portico over the driveway of the mind-bogglingly massive Bellagio Hotel and Casino.

Here's a view of the six source exposures (all made on a tripod, a mandatory condition for HDR compositing). The aperture is a constant f/11 (a constant aperture is also mandatory) and the shutter speeds range from 0.5 seconds to 15 seconds, in 1-stop increments.

(click the image to see a larger version)

The initial HDR blend created the basic image that contained a much wider dynamic range of tonal values than could have been captured in a single exposure. But it was a little flat and needed some extra work. This is the case with all HDR images in my experience; the basic 16-bit HDR merge is just one step in the process, not the end result. Fine-tuning can always make it better.

The initial merged result (click in the image for a larger version)

The first thing I did was turn the image into a Smart Object and used the Warp command to correct the perspective distortion. The I added four adjustment layers with layer masks, to address the overall contrast and enhance the tonal quality of specific areas in the image. All of this was done in Photoshop CS3.

The Layers palette for the finished photo (click in the image to see a larger version)

Coming in the next post...an HDR image with visible motion. And coming after that, a downloadable PDF of one of my Photoshop tutorials for Layers magazine.

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Featured Workshop

The Creative Digital Darkroom: July 29 – August 4, 2007 Santa Fe Workshops

This week's featured workshop is still a ways off, but if you're interested in a week of creative Photoshop and digital photography, then consider joining me in Santa Fe, New Mexico this summer for my Creative Digital Darkroom workshop.The workshop is based on concepts, philosophies and techniques that are covered the book I am currently finishing up with Katrin Eismann, The Creative Digital Darkroom, due out this fall from O'Reilly Media, Inc. The digital darkroom lab at the Santa Fe Workshops is one of the best I have ever taught in. Each student has a G5 Mac with a cinema display with access to an Epson Stylus Photo 2400 printer. And, although I can't guarantee it at this time, my guess is that Photoshop CS3 will be installed on the computers for this class. We'll have two photo excursions during the week for practicing creative camera and exposure techniques at interesting nearby locations.

By the way, if you live in Hawaii, I'll be teaching two short classes there on the 13th, 14th & 15th of April at the Outreach College at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu:

Selections and Masking in Adobe Photoshop CS2, April 13

Photoshop for Photographers: Mastering the Digital Image, April 14-15

Vegas Hotel Room, 6:30 AM

Room 5322, 6:30 AM, Tropicana  [Canon 5D]
Las Vegas, March 26, 2007
(click in the image for a larger version)

Another Vegas hotel room "panorama" (who says panoramas have to be of scenic landscapes?) from another trip to the Strip.

Like the previous post, this is also two exposures taken to record a wider view of the room. They were blended together using the wonderfully new and improved Photomerge feature in Photoshop CS3.