HDR photography has become quite popular recently.  Even the new iPhones will produce stunning HDR images.  If you are unfamiliar with this style of photography, the HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  Traditionally to create these types of images you would be required to take at least 3 identical images at different exposure settings, and those photos would be combined into a single image using special software.  The reason for this is because an HDR is taking the areas from each photo that are perfectly exposed and combining them into one image.  Typically, when you take a photo of a scene not everything in the image is at its optimum exposure.  For example, one area might be in a shadow and another area could be over exposed by the sun, but an object elsewhere in the image is perfectly exposed.

Now lets say we didn’t think to take 3+ images when we were out shooting but we still want a beautiful HDR image of the scene.  That’s were this Lightroom technique for fake HDRs comes in to play.

Lets start with the original image:

As you can see, the image is fairly drab, the colors are not vibrant, and the front of the gas pump is under exposed compared to the rest of the scene.

The image to the left illustrates the Lightroom settings I used to obtain our effect.  The first step is to get everything properly exposed, you can do this by fidgeting with the “Fill Light” and “Recovery” settings in Lightroom.  Add more fill light to brighten up dark areas, and more recovery to restore details to over exposed areas.

Personally, I’m a contrast junkie so I like to bump my clarity all the way up and add contrast to taste. This will create a sharp, crisp image.  And lastly, you will want to bring your vibrance and saturation up.  This will help make those colors bright and vibrant just like you see in many HDR images.

And that’s it, you have your High Dynamic Range image. You can download the lightroom preset I created to make this image right click on this link and choose save as.

Filed under: New Media, Technology

Recently, NPR ran a story about an Iranian art exhibit that debuted at the Crewest Gallery in Los Angeles, California.  I find it interesting to see how the recent turmoil in Iran affects the artists of the country.

In the interview, curator Shervin Shahbazi speaks of the many pieces that should have made it to the exhibition but where stopped by Iranian customs agents.  And most were held because they contained the color green and/or other political statements about the current regime in Iran.

Green happens to be the color of the opposition party that was lead by presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the heavily debated election of 2009.  This election lead to rioting in the streets of Tehran and conspiracies that the election was rigged by the ruling party.  So it goes with out saying why the Iranian government would have a problem with the world at large getting their hands on these pieces.

The censorship of Iran is so strong, that none of the artists where able to even give their real names out of fear of retaliation by the government.

But despite the difficulties presented to these artists, many of their works still made it to LA, and are being snatched up at a very fast pace.

All images provided by the Crewest Gallery’s Flickr Page

Scream-FRZ

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Filed under: Art, Current Events

Well, this is my first blog post here. So I guess an introduction is necessary. My name is Kris Arnold, and I just started working here as a web developer. I came here from NUVO Newsweekly as their web developer and photographer.

Given that I don’t consider myself much of a writer, it seems practical that the rest of my blog contain photos, as this is a little more up my alley. Photography is a great passion of mine, and I’m sure as time goes on, I will share many more pictures on this blog.

photo by Rumi Sakuraeda

During my time at NUVO I had a few opportunities to take photos of some familiar faces here at the museum. I also took some time to get some snapshots of our little neck of the woods, quaintly nestled behind the library.

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Filed under: Technology