Benz World Blog » 2009

Forest Green

Jason Benz — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:22:43 +0000

This was taken in Wiltshire near Stonehenge. The image only needed some subtle adjustments to balance the greens and bring out the colour in the bark.

Pharaoh Skirt

Jason Benz — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:50:44 +0000

Ever wondered what a Pharaoh keeps under his skirt?

This is the Temple of Hathor in Egypt. It was dedicated to the Nubian Queen Nefertari. The image was made with layers of As Shot and HDR blended in various modes.

Seaton Viaduct

Jason Benz — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:10:18 +0000

This railway viaduct was built in 1878. It is three-quarters of a mile long and crosses the Welland Valley. To create this image I used alternate layers of HDR Detail Enhancer and HDR Tone Compressor. I used a variety of blending modes to build up the image.

Hadrians Wall

Jason Benz — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:50:43 +0000

Karen took this is a shot of me on Hadrians wall. The sky was almost completely blown out in order to capture as much detail as possible in the stones. I managed to squeeze out some more detail by using an extreme tone curve. You can see from the gray bar chart the original image had almost no mid-tones.

Tree Sun

Jason Benz — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:47:22 +0000

This silhouette of a tree in front of the sunset was on the north shore of Rutland Water. It was processed with Photomatix to produce two HDR images. I loaded these and an unprocessed image into three layers in photoshop. As all three layers are very different it is possible to get some extreme results from changing the blending modes.

Sunset Trees

Jason Benz — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:16:28 +0000

These trees were taken on the side of the road along the Hambleton peninsula. The panel below shows the layers used to develop the image.

Snow Scene

Jason Benz — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:47:22 +0000

This is the North shore of Rutland Water after the snow. I’ve shot this path from another angle here. The panel below shows how I have digitally developed this image in Photoshop. The Levels and Curves layers affect the whole image. The other two layers have masks applied. The Colour Balance layer only affects the ground and the Hue/Saturation layer only affects the sky.

Snow World

Jason Benz — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:49:16 +0000

Today I got on my bike to capture some of this crazy weather we have been experiencing. Cycling up and down icy hills is not for the faint-hearted This planet was taken in a field in Hambleton which is the peninsula in the centre of Rutland Water. How to make your own planet.

Stunning Sunset

Jason Benz — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:57:47 +0000

This stunning sunset was taken by the side of the road in the deserts of western Egypt. Capturing a sunset can have it’s problems. The first thing to do is turn off the cameras automatic white balance. If you let the camera decide you could lose most of your warm golden tones. This is because it tries to give a mix of colours even if its looking at a big red sky. The next problem is the dynamic range of the scene will probably be much higher than the camera can record. You can take multiple exposures with a tripod and blend them with HDR. This was a hand held shot so I used Photoshop to bring back the colours which the camera did not capture. I’ve also had some interesting results from split toning sunsets.

Austria Panorama

Jason Benz — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:55:21 +0000

I took this on a family holiday to Austria in 2008. This Panorama was created from three wide angle shots. I used various blending modes to build up the image.