Suddenly the sky exploded…

Coastal Scenes

By our second day we started to get acclimated to our surroundings in Hilton Head and decided to take a ride over to another beautiful area of the island called Shelter  Cove.

Shelter Cove is a marina accompanied by shops, eateries, and entertainment. The entertainment came in the form of one man bands and child entertainers. Each at different areas of the marina.

This shot comes as we walked to the far west end of the cove. Boats would come and go from this area of the marina.

_MG_9037

The weather, as it was all week,  was hot and very humid. Each day there was a chance of late afternoon thunder showers. Conditions like this are usually favorable to great sunsets.

Patience was the key to this shot, I must have taken a dozen shots of this scene with different perspectives, waiting for the sun to set behind the clouds. We started to head back to the car when my daughter shouted to turn around. Within moments the westerly sky exploded with color!


Here’s a fantastic photographer with a gallery in Charleston.

Chris Botti and John Mayer, great combo, here.






All Things Nautical…

Still Life

_MG_0614Another of the wonderful ships at Penns Landing in Philadelphia

Meet the Moshulu, a square rigged ship built in 1904 that has literally been all over the world map. Since coming to Philly in 1975 it is regarded as one of the best restaurants in Philadelphia.

This shot was taken just before sun-up which really accentuated the sky in the background. I worked to find the correct color temperature in Lightroom and once I found it the color popped. I may be going back to this location in a few weeks with some fine photographers over at the New Jersey Photographer community on Google+. Check us out.

My Go To Software…

HDR, Tutorials

Ocean OneOther than having some integration with Lightroom problems I cannot tell you how valuable Topaz Simplify has been for my processing workflow. The results I get out of the Buz Sim presets are just amazing.

Now I do have to tell you that I use my own preset 99% of the time and it’s pretty simple. I zero out all the sliders and the only slider I adjust is the Simplify Size slider and I set that at .13. That’s it! Just like many of these software programs the adjustments to any of the sliders work best with minimal settings. Now certainly this is a matter of personal opinion but for me it works best with that approach.

So, all the Simplify users out there, try my suggestion and post the results. Would love to hear your opinions, maybe even some of your favorite settings.

Processed in Photomatix (many moons ago) and most recently in Topaz Simplify with the Simplify Size setting at .13