Nik Software - HDR Efex Pro

The other week I saw a video on a lightroom plug-in called HDR Efex Pro ii by Nik Software. But I had some trouble finding this program I was able to get hold of a copy of the older version.

Now I have only use this program once but the finished image did look very nice. It was not an HDR image made up for 3 different exposed but of 2 different images I took at last weeks beach burn.

In other words I just added 2 images with one thing different in them, kinda like just cutting it out and pasting it in. This was the final images I ended up with.

Using the tools inside of HDR Efex Pro I think I did a great job and the efex came out very nice!

You can export right from Light-room into HDR Efex Pro

As a plug in it works from LightRoom4,  HDR Efex Pro can export from LR to HDR Efex Pro, Saving you time and letting you just fix your images and not making you waste your time.

Presets and different viewing options

It has over 32 different presets that you can add to your image, but then you can make your own presets if you wish. Plus you can  tweak  and change any of the settings you wish using the tools inside the program

Adjustment point let you edit just one area

With-in the editing tools there is also a Adjustment tool, that lets you pump or reduce some parts of the images to give you even more tools to tweak the pic to just what you wish to end up with

Save and done

Once you have done all your edits and got the look you want, Click save and its done! It will import it back into LR for any final edits and then your done.

Back inside LightRoom

Now this is not the best image in the world but you get the idea, If your into HDR then this plug-in is a good way adding some great touches to your work. Plus it lets you work alot faster and you dont need to use Photoshop (But you still can if you wish)

The Final Image

 

Boat Parties

After a bit of a crazy start to my weekend with the beach burn, Next on the list of things to do was the party on the Thames (Looks to be a theme this weekend).

The boat party was to bring in four different 30th birthdays from a group of my friends, Now you know I don't bring out names on here (and you know who you are). The night started early on Saturday and went on till the early hours - before hitting another club and all in all I was out of the house for nearly 24 hours!

It was fun making a tiny little boat look like a massive club night, but I think I did a good job of bring in the fun to the images!

The Boat! 

The Dancers

Battle of the Lashes 

The Chair Everyone Wanted

Smooth!

Full set of images on the site (LINK)

Burn and Shoot

Beach burning can be fun but without having the fuel it can kinda suck. 

Good thing I was going mostly for shooting and less for spinning, I did have a little spin using a friends fuel and the snakes got to burn this time around.

I was trying some new ways of shooting on the beach burn, My normal way of shooting the burns is to use a long shutter speed to get the tails of the flame but this time I wanted to shoot fast so I got the detail in the flame.

This was also the first time I got to use my wireless triggers. I shoot over 600 images and not one miss fire so I can tell you that they work very well. Only trouble I had was when I was not shooting the fire I had some focus issues but that was more to the fact that I did not have any light to focus on.

Most of the shots were shot at 1/200 at aound f/5.6,  Also using an orange gel on an off camera flash. The last 2 images on this blog are using a longer shutter speed to give you an idea of the different styles of shooting Fire.

The full set of images are on my site (LINK) Hope you enjoy them!