As for this one: it's a composite shot of five originals, none of which were sufficiently interesting to post on their own but, when combined, create something that's visually more interesting.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

.../archives/emirates_towers.php

The final image, as you can see, is considerably more vibrant, and the tonal range is more balanced. In short then, in my opinion at least, it's a technique that's great for this type of scene.

Oh, and this is a shot of the Emirates Towers, shot from the DIFC in Dubai.

On a totally different matter: we're currently running a competition to win a lifetime membership to our Photoshop tutorials. If you'd like to take part the details are linked below:

    http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/competition.php

    http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/competition.php

The metered exposure is here:

.../archives/jumeirah_beach_3.php

There wasn't anything especially complex of difficult about the post-production, but if you're interested I cover most of the relevant techniques in my Photoshop for night photography and Toning colour images tutorials. The HDR process is covered in High Dynamic Range images: part two.

We met Wendy and her husband in Bulgaria – they live in a village on the opposite side of the valley from us – but Wendy is currently back in the UK after being diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 20 years. She's currently part way through a course of chemotherapy, which will be followed by another 12 months of treatment with Herceptin, so will be staying in the UK for the foreseeable future.

As you can see though, she's not letting it get her down :)

The original is here:

.../archives/vivienne_westwood.php

On a totally different matter: I'm heading back to Bulgaria today, and will probably be just about to land at Sofia as this entry goes live. I'm not looking forward to the trip – not least because I'll have spent most of last night at Manchester airport waiting to check in – but am really looking forward to seeing Libby and the kids. I've been away for over two weeks now, which is just a bit too long.

And finally: I'll be spending some time next week shooting portraits of our youngest daughter, so watch out for those at some point from around Wednesday onwards.

If you're interested, the original is here:

.../archives/light_trails.php

The post-production was mostly carried out in Camera Raw: I added some contrast and shifted the hue of some of the colours to broaden the colour palette.

On a different matter: if you didn't read my previous entry, I posted my initial thoughts on Topaz Detail, a plugin that does a great job of bringing out the detail in an image without introducing any obvious processing artefacts. If you haven't tried it I'd definitely suggest that you download the demo version and try it out.

In terms of the post-production ...

This one was relatively straightforward, other than that I merged two exposures: the metered exposure, and a second shot that was over-exposed by 1 2/3 EV (I used this to bring out the detail in the darker areas of the umbrella).

I also used Topaz Detail, a Photoshop plugin from Topaz Labs, to bring out the fine scale detail in both the umbrella and the sand. If you haven't tried this plugin, I'd highly recommend it, as it does an absolutely superb job of bringing out the detail in an image without introducing any obvious processing artefacts.

If you're interested, I've posted some before and after shots of a crop from the high res' image here:

http://www.chromasia.com/iblog/archives/Untitled_0095.php

I don't often recommend plugins, not least because I much prefer working out how to achieve a particular within Photoshop, but none of the Photoshop techniques that I know (USM with a large radius, High Pass Sharpening, and so on) come close to those you can achieve with Topaz Detail. If you're interested, this is a topic I covered in my latest tutorial. Anyway, download the demo version and try it for yourself.

If you're not familiar with the event, it's organised around a series of workshops. For example, Zack does a one-light workshop (amongst other things), I do a range of shooting and post-production sessions, Vincent did a week long session on using the 5D II to shoot video, and so on. There's also quite a lot of socialising, most notably at the Vista Bar on the roof of our hotel, and a range of other events, sessions, exhibitions, and so on.

One of the highlights of this year's event was a live shoot-out between Zack Arias, David Hobby and Joey Lawrence that took place during the closing ceremony. Each of them had 25 minutes to shoot and post-process a shot of two models, in front of an audience of several hundred photographers and students. David went first, and used about six "voice activated" light-stands (aka people with cameras and flash guns that were slaved to David's camera) to create a great, paparazzi style shot of the models. I don't think he's posted it online yet, but I'll link through when he does. Zack used three lights, and created an equally stunning shot. Joey, on the other hand, went for a slightly less sophisticated approach and shot a polaroid.

Update: David's take on the shoot-out is here:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/03/speedlights-at-twenty-paces.html

Anyway, I'll tell you more about the event and everything else that went on later this week, but for now, here's another shot of the Jumeirah beach taken while I was out with Catalin Marin and Robin Nichols. The content is fairly similar to the previous one I posted, but I decided to process this one in a slightly different way. As always, let me know what you think.

Oh, and if you've been following my Facebook updates you'll know that ended up in the Emirates hospital on Friday evening, suffering from disturbingly painful stomach cramps. I'm still not quite sure what the problem was, but after taking a variety of tablets for a couple of days I now feel a whole lot better. At which point I should definitely thank Khaled for driving me to the hospital and Miriam for driving out there too to look after me.

As for this shot: it was taken down at the Gate Village down at the DIFC and is an HDR, constructed from three exposures (-2 EV to + 2 EV) using Photomatix Pro.

If you're interested, the metered exposure for this sequence is here:

.../archives/gate_village_1.php