<<< o >>>cherry coke 22 comments + add yours
chromasia.com

As I mentioned near the start of this month, things have been extremely hectic and I've hardly had a minute to myself, let alone any time to take photographs. I've been working on a couple of external projects, that I'll tell you about at some point, and Libby has been busy as a finalist in the Outstanding Woman in Business Award category in the ABF Tiger Awards, 2008 and attending other events.

And next week isn't going to be much different, not least because I need to finish my latest Digital Workflow tutorial by Friday (or thereabouts). After that though, things should be a bit quieter and I'm hoping to spend a lot of time in July and August just taking photographs.

As for this one: it was taken this afternoon down at our local park with my new Canon G9, and combines a few of my recent passions - it's an HDR shot, processed using Photomatix Pro and a three shot bracketed sequence, and it's also processed in LAB Color mode, the topic of my latest tutorial. In this instance I used LAB to change the colour of the foreground from a fairly lurid shade of green to the more neutral blue/grey you can see here.

On a related matter: I don't know how many of you know about the annual European Photobloggers meetup, but this year's event is in Barcelona. I'm hoping to go along as I attended the first meetup in London in 2005 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I missed the last two though – Amsterdam in 2006 and Berlin in 2007 – so thought I better make more of an effort this year :-)

If you're interested, there are some further details here:

http://europephotobloggers.org/2008meetup

 
3x2 + HDR + urban
comment by DavidC at 07:49 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

Very nice shot! details are so clear. Im really curious to see the before picture on this one since you did so much post processing. That little G9 packs a punch, Ill have to look into one. Great quality, at least for web resolution.

comment by djn1 at 07:54 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

David: ok, here's a link to the metered exposure, processed with the default settings in ACR (and no sharpening) -

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/cherry_coke.php

comment by DavidC at 08:05 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

Your post processing skills are amazing, in this one you literally took trash and made it into something captivating. The original photo has no appeal to me, but I cant stop looking at the details in the final piece! the red and blue work so well together! Great work!

comment by djn1 at 08:29 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

Thanks David.

comment by Tom at 08:57 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

I don't like complicated pictures... This one makes me really happy.

Thanks

comment by Jennifer at 09:17 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

Great stuff - hate canned fizzy drinks - but empty and thrown away they do give togs endless creative opportunities ;-) Glad you managed a walkabout!

comment by Josef Renklint at 11:57 PM (GMT) on 27 June, 2008

Gorgeous crisp colors, as always. This shot made me thirsty. How do you do it?

comment by ash at 08:54 PM (GMT) on 28 June, 2008

I've looked at this multiple times over the last day or two, and I love it more every time. Amazing.

comment by Mark at 10:06 AM (GMT) on 29 June, 2008

How are you getting such a shallow DoF, Dave? Presumably you've used the macro mode again and, I must confess, it's something I've really not tried out a lot on my G9 to be honest. Do you tend to use a certain number of settings when on the G9?

comment by Alice at 05:01 PM (GMT) on 29 June, 2008

Amazes me how you can even make a simple Coke can look interesting. :-) Nice shot.

comment by m at 07:11 PM (GMT) on 29 June, 2008

Congrats to Libby on making the finals.

comment by djn1 at 07:35 PM (GMT) on 29 June, 2008

Thanks all.

comment by onewayphotoblog / Mark at 09:10 AM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Great still life of an iconic design... I love the muted red colour

comment by Claus at 10:13 AM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Makes me thirsty :-)

comment by Al at 09:27 PM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Great HDR / Lab PP ! You mentioned that you used Lab to change the foreground from green to grey. Was Lab also used for the background as well? What parts did you mask? (if any)

comment by djn1 at 09:45 PM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Al: I didn't use any masking for the colour change. LAB allows you to alter specific colour ranges within an image quite easily by altering the Curve in either the 'a' or 'b' channel, or both. If you're interested, this is covered in my latest LAB tutorial.

comment by Mark at 11:10 PM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Oi!!! This is twice now I've asked about the DoF with your G9 shots and both times been ignored. My money is on you having added it in during post process...but I don't class that as a bad thing. So, come on....confess!! ;)

comment by djn1 at 11:31 PM (GMT) on 30 June, 2008

Sorry Mark: a) for not answering the first time, and b) because you're wrong ;-) The DoF in macro mode is actually quite shallow.

comment by Thomas at 12:25 PM (GMT) on 1 July, 2008

This is such a 'sweet' shot :)

comment by Thomas at 12:26 PM (GMT) on 1 July, 2008

By the way, thanks for the info about the blogger meetup. Looks like something I'd love to attend.

comment by Mark at 08:12 PM (GMT) on 1 July, 2008

Cheers :) I shall start trying that out a bit more I think.

comment by Daniel at 08:40 AM (GMT) on 12 July, 2008

I really like what you did here!