Tutorial: useful Lightroom shortcuts

Note: As my list of Photoshop keyboard shortcuts seems to be quite popular I would like to share a list of my favourite Lightroom keyboard shortcuts today. BTW there is also a list of Photomatix Pro shortcuts available here.Modules and viewThese shortcuts are used to navigate between different modules and also to choose different ways to preview your photos:G - go to Grid view in Library - useful for viewing a lot of photos at...

Pinks in the sky

I've shared a few photos from that very sunrise on Fuerteventura already but it was really gorgeous one with all those pinks and purples in the sky so here is yet another HDR photo for you to watch.In the case of this photo I took 5 exposures, 1.5 EV apart, Fused them in Photomatix Pro using Natural processing method and then finished it in Photoshop using luminosity masks.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105...

My muse

Stepping out of your comfort zone might be difficult but at the same time it can help you greatly in improving your general photography skills. As you know most of the time I'm photographing landscapes, sometimes architecture and I very frequently use HDR, Fusion or manual blending to extend dynamic range. But I often photograph other subjects: from animals in zoo, street scenes to portraits. I take macro photos and action as...

Before/after comparison: Golden light

Time for another before/after comparison + some post processing details. This time a sunset photographed in Amoudara, Crete. There was some beautiful warm light during golden hour so I took hundreds of pictures. Here is one of them.I took 7 exposures at 1 EV spacing, merged them to HDR and tone-mapped in Photomatix Pro (which is Before). Then I edited my image with luminosity masks technique in Photoshop CC (After).In the...

Human camera review

Although Human camera is on the market for quite a few years (first prototypes are dated 4.4 million years back) I don't think there is a proper review so I decided to write one myself.Technical specs Let's start with some technical specs:dual-lens (lenses are identical)shutter speed of 1/30 (fixed)aperture f/2.8 - f/14.9focal length - 23 mm (equivalent of 50 mm for 35 mm film)image stabilizationultra fast burst mode (18 to 30...

Thoughts: First enjoy, then photograph

It was a beautiful and cold morning in Tatra mountains. First I grabbed a lot of fantastic sunrise photos and about an hour later this one. Despite the fact light wasn't that warm anymore the scene was beautiful due to its very limited tonality (just white and blue).One of the easiest mistakes to make while photographing is to focus too much on taking photos forgetting about enjoying the pure beauty of your subject or phenomenon...

The Mirror

Photographing lakes is one of the easiest ways to get perfect (or close to perfect) reflections. There are no high waves (at least most of the time) as in seas and also water is more static compared to rivers for instance. So it's possible to capture water surface that looks like a mirror. It looked like one in the photo above. There are small ripples in the bottom right corner but other than that the lake surface is very very...

Under the umbrella - night HDR photo

I really like shooting night HDR landscape photos (like this or this). They are so different from sunsets, sunrises and blue hour shots everyone is used to nowadays. When I shoot them I try to find a very dark place but with some strong light in the background. It creates strong and often surreal effect. Also by using long exposure I bring a lot of details to these very dark scenes. For instance I shot above photo from a place...

Port in Heraklion

I took a lot of HDR photos while in Greece but I'm still struggling with processing them because it takes a lot of time. In the past it was easier - I captured photos, opened them in Photomatix Pro, dragged a few sliders in it and saved the result. Then I opened it in Gimp and applied some sharpening and I was done. It took 30 second - 5 minutes per photo. Nowadays it's more complicated - I first apply some preliminary adjustments...

Sunset in Warsaw again

I hope you aren't bored with my photos from Warsaw because today I decided to share yet another one showing sunset. I took a total of 5 exposures but then decided to manually blend only 4 of them rejecting the darkest exposure because there were no highlights it could save - thus it was redundant.But if you are bored with these photos I have some good news - I plan to increase variety of shots posted here. So one day it'll be...

Sunset over Warsaw

For a few years now my goal was to make my HDR photos look as realistic as possible. At first I struggled but then, month by month I started to get closer and closer to that very goal. Now I think I'm really not that far from reaching it. I try to avoid oversaturated colors, my photos are usually halo-free and I also try to make both shadows and highlights to look realistic. My photos look quite good and believable to me and...

Blue hour in Warsaw

Another one from Warsaw, taken from Swietokrzyski Bridge. I took quite a few photos last time and have plans to take even more. This one was taken more for fun but it turned out quite nice with some very nice reflections in the rail.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IIILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/11.0Exposure time: 0.8 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 200Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 1Flash used:...

Tutorial: post-processing infrared photos

Some time ago I shared a short tutorial: Introduction to Infrared photography. By that time I gave you just a few basic tips on how to take infrared photos and how to set white balance to make them look good. Today I would like to give some tips on how to process them as it isn't that straightforward as you might think.First of all after you open your infrared photo in Lightroom or Photoshop you will notice that it is very reddish...

Crown of Thira

I uploaded one image from Santorini a few days ago. Time for another one - this time showing capital of the island - Thira - as seen from high vantage point over the town. This spot is known as Crown of Thira.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IIILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/11.0Exposure time: 1/160 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 1Flash used: noTripod: noFilters:...

Before/after comparison: sunset in Warsaw

Time for another before/after comparison + some post processing details. This time a sunset photographed in Warsaw. What I focused on in this shot was that beautiful huge cloud behind the Royal Palace. I wanted it to be the hero of this shot and to make the exposure of the final image match the exposure of that cloud. For that reason I decided to go with low light processing. If I made the city brighter it would look slightly...

Milky Way wallpaper

One of my favorite and most popular photos. I shared it before but I think today is a good reason to reshare it as starting today you can download this image as a HD wallpaper. To get it just go to the Wallpapers section or click on one of the links below to get resolution suitable for your monitor:1920x1200 1600x12...

Vistula - the blue river

I'm not taking photos of Warsaw very often. Rather rarely. The problem is that I know this city too well to be excited about photographing it. What can be interesting in the Old Town? Or any of the bridges? Or parks? They look so familiar and boring. However, very recently I realized that in fact this city is quite beautiful and very picturesque and that I'm making huge mistake by not portraying it. So yesterday I packed my gear...

Windy sunset on Crete

It was windy on Crete during my stay what actually made it easier to stand the heat. And also was good for landscape photography - I like that blur created by strong wind. It makes the scenes more dynamic and also can help in removing distracting elements from the picture. To get long enough exposure when shooting sunsets I needed to use ND400 neutral density filter. Otherwise I could get only very fast shutter speeds.Technical...

Before/after comparison: Oia on Santorini

I haven't done a before/after comparison in a while so here is one today. Taken in Oia, one of the most famous towns on island of Santorini it shows the result from Photomatix Pro (before) vs image after some tweaks in Photoshop (after). As you can see I created rather flat and low contrast image in Photomatix. This way it was easier for me to apply final adjustments in Photoshop to get the result I wanted - to show you what...

Tutorial: dealing with lens flares

Above photo was treated with technique described in this tutorialWhen I was taking some snapshots as a kid a lot of people told me not to point the camera in the direction of the sun. And I listened (I was that kind of kid which sometimes listened to those older than me). But many years later when I started photographing for serious I quickly learnt that pointing my camera in the sun is actually one of the easiest ways to get...

Infrared tiny planet

Today I'd like to share sort of unusual photo. Probably you've heard about tiny planets and infrared photography. If not take a look at my tutorials about creating tiny planets effect and introduction to infrared photography. This time I decided to combine the two and created infrared tiny planet. To do that I first captured infrared 360 degrees panorama in Greece and then converted it into a tiny planet.BTW I have a few ideas...

The layers

In the past when I was programming realtime 3D graphics (for video games) one of my main interest was atmospheric scattering. It's a rather complex phenomenon let me tell you but basically it's about the light travelling through various particles and being scattered what results in it changing colour. We can observe it for instance as beautiful haze near the horizon during sunset or sunrise.Despite the fact I don't code 3D graphics...

Path in the forest

Still no new photos from Greece. So instead a HDR photo I took a few years back (two or three), in the forest somewhere in Masurian district, Poland. I really liked how the path lead the way as well as lights and shadows play on the pat...

Sunrise on Fuerteventura

A little break from my photos from Greece today because I process them way slower than I hoped to. But I will post them in next few days so stay tuned if you're interested in the way I saw Crete or Santorini.Instead today I'd like to share a sunrise photo taken on Fuerteventura. I decided to use slower shutter speed to give sense of motion and roughness of the sea. I didn't want to go with too slow times though because this way...

Canon 5D Mark III Review

I took this photo with Canon 5D MK III during blue hour. The tree was lit by the lights of the hotel situated nearby what resulted in a bit surreal look.For more than a year I was using Canon 5D Mark II but very recently I switched to its successor - 5D Mark III. Was it worth the switch? Read my short review below. Just after starting up 5D MK III you notice one thing - it is much more professional than its predecessor. From...

Relax in the shade of power plant

When I'm travelling apart from taking landscape photos which are my favourite I also try to capture something that shows nature of the places I visit. Or photos which tell how I feel about particular place. So today here is one from Greece. It shows a couple of people walking and holding their hands. They are relaxed probably in love but at the same time they are walking towards power plant which is hardly romantic.I tried to...

Cretan beach at night

I'm back from my vacation in Greece which included towns of Heraklion, Amoudara and ruins of Knossos (Crete) and towns of Oia and Thira (Santorini). During last 2 weeks I was mostly relaxing (it's a great thing to do from time to time!), spending my time in warm water, eating like mad or drinking cocktails but I also found some time to take some photos. And by some I mean something around 8.000 photos. However, many of them are...