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Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles - #3

High contrast photo of the Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles - #3No, not actually a night shot. I increased the contrast of this photo to give emphasis to the light and dark areas. Because of the very reflective nature of the stainless steel skin of the Disney Concert Hall it's a perfect photo for high contrast effects. Now it looks like a night shot in a Hollywood movie with the very dark blue sky. Photo #4 is the same photo without the high contrast adjustment.


Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100

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Samoan Youth

This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm

Taking Photos in RAW DNG Format with Mobile Devices

Note: This post was originally published on January 16, 2017, as the second part of a three-part series on RAW format mobile photography. Some details — particularly the apps' feature sets, Android versions, and the state of mobile RAW photography — have changed considerably since then. I've left the original text in place as a record of where things stood at the time. Following on from yesterday's post ( What is RAW photography format? ), today I am going to share with you some ways you can take RAW DNG (digital negative) files using an Android device such as a smartphone or tablet. Currently I am using a Google Pixel XL smartphone running on Android 7.1.1 (Nougat). If you haven't yet read yesterday's post, I recommend that you take the time to do so to give you an understanding of the advantages of taking your photos in RAW format. Android Apps That Allow You to Take Photos in RAW Format Currently, these are the two apps I use on my Google Pixel XL ...

Adjusting Levels and Curves with Photoshop

When I was working with this photo of the sunset over the Grand Canyon last night, I realized that it was a perfect photo to demonstrate the power of the two quick Photoshop adjustments that improve almost any photo. They are adjusting the levels and curves. Almost all photos benefit from an adjustment to both of these elements. I opened the photo of the sunset which I shot using Canon's raw format (CR2). A "raw" file is actually not an image file; it's a data file that has to be opened with a program that can read it and process it as an image file. Photoshop has plug-ins for handling the raw files for all the common brands of cameras. Here's the before and after of the image: The original unadjusted photo has an orange cast. A lot of photos have casts, and especially wide-angle landscape photos. You can think of the cast as something like a colored mesh or filter over the entire surface of the photo. Adjusting levels will remove the color cast. So let's sta...