I love finding old gems when I’m cleaning out the old archive closet. This was taken in the spring of 2005 in Floyd County along with Blue Ridge Parkway . I had processed it before, but I was never really satisfied with the outcome.

The raw material isn’t super great. I’ve learned a lot in 5½ years, particularly about the necessity of a good tripod and having bracketed images to work from, but I’ve also learned a couple of things about post processing and I think I’m finally pretty satisfied with the result.

I’d love to give processing notes, but I manhandled it to thoroughly (and often in circles) that I would’ve had to take notes. Which I did because I didn’t start out knowing that the result would amount to anything.

I checked the EXIF on these photos and noticed something interesting. All three were taken with the Pentax DA* 16-50/2.8 and they were even all taken at 16mm. Interesting, especially since they were taken during two trips a year apart. They were even taken with different camera. The first year, I took a whole Tamrac backpack full of lenses and my K10. The next year I only took the K7 and 16-50. I love my whole kit, but the 16-50 is definitely a nice substitute for a holiday. It helps that in coming back year after year, I don’t feel a need to take a picture of all of the usual places. I can pack a light kit and get the special shots.

I’ve become increasingly enamored with Photoshop curves latest, especially for toning monochrome images.

Full article includes Photoshop curves file download

I downloaded a set named “rustica” a year or so back and would love to be able to share those, but I cannot find anywhere to download them currently and don’t know how the original author would feel about having them redistributed. In the meantime, I’ll post a similar Photoshop curves preset that I’ve made with the hope of sharing more in the future.

The file was created with Adobe Photoshop CS5, but I believe it is backward compatible with any CS or later version of Photoshop. I’m not sure about Elements, but you can always try.

Like everything on this site, with the exception of samples of the commercial work I have done for others, these are shared under a Creative Commons license that allows you to use them and share them with attribution but not redistributed them commercially.

Download: Split Tone Strong

I can’t believe it has been two years since I’ve been down to Mount Rogers. I wish that I could reminisce more about what a magical place it is, it’s unique landscape dotted with wild ponies and wind blown trees, but I’m pretty sick with some sort of summer ick. It is making my head swim pretty badly, so I’ll have to leave you with just a photo.

I needed a good bit of processing on this one to really bring out the mood that I saw in it. The overlay is from my Rollei’s viewfinder, plus a nice rustica curve and some general tweaking.

Well it is amazing what a proper photo store can do for one’s buying. When I was in Columbus, Ohio visiting my sister, we stopped by Cord Camera‘s West Lane Avenue location and I finally decided to join the ranks of gadgethead photogs and bought a proper reflector and a light tent.

The photos above are all taken in my fancy new SystemPro LiteTent. The vacuum tubes are courtesy of my husband’s affinity for everything old and the repair of things that have long since become obsolete. The overlayed image is that of my Rollie (Rolleiflex Automat Model 2 K4B2)’s viewfinder copied as new layer in Photoshop, blended as an overlay, and treated with a curves preset that rather resembled the old Rustica set.