Rocket Man...

This is a 3 shot HDR image of a rocket sculpture in San Francisco.

This was a fantastic night for taking photos in San Francisco, the moon was full, and fast moving clouds really provided an excellent back drop for pictures, really a fun night to be out and shooting photos.

Take a look at what the HDR treatment does to a photo, below is an image that was shot at the proper exposure, and you can see that many parts you miss out on because the image is not exposed well in a lot of parts. In particular look at the sign that lights up, in the proper exposure you can't really see any of the deatail but the HDR you can. Also some of the legs of the rocket ship are washed out, but not in the HDR.

If would like to see a full resolution version of this image, or you would like to purchase a copy, visit our website at stoutandstout.com

Bridge To The City

Sorry for the long time in between posts but we have been busy finding a place to move, hopefully we will be able to take more pictures and post regularly soon.

Here is a 5 shot HDR image of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and some of the skyline of San Francisco.

This night was such a beautiful one in the city. A summer night but it felt as if it could have been a winter night as cold as it was. The clouds were just right as well, they hid the moon and made it very interesting. The clouds were moving so fast the scene changed very fast, such an interesting night!!

If you would like to see a full resolution version of this image, or you would like to purchase a copy, please go to our website at stoutandstout.com

To The Clouds...

It is always nice to have a clear day when shooting, but clouds a lot of times can add to your picture. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

Here is a before and after of a beach in Pebble Beach, California that we added some clouds to in Photoshop,

as you can see, it was not bad without clouds but with them it makes the  photo a little more interesting.

Next is a before and after photo of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. This house is believed

to be haunted and their is a lot of strangeness associated with it, so we wanted to add some clouds to add a dark feel to it. The after image is in HDR so it also looks a lot different from the original.

You can see here the original image was ok, but adding clouds and doing an HDR gave the image a kind of mystery and dark feel that we were going for.

If you would like to see these photos without the watermark, please go to our website at stoutandstout.com , these images as well as many others are available for purchase.

So be sure to start taking pictures of clouds (really good activity too if your out of ideas on what to shoot), you never know when they can come in handy.



Elephant On Vacation

So I wanted to create a fun image but really didn't know what to create. So I was going through our photos from Hawaii, and when I came across this elephant we took a picture of in the Honolulu Zoo it hit me, why not send the elephant on vacation? So below is a picture of an elephant hanging out on Waikiki beach.

If you would like to see an unwatermarked version of this photo, our would like to purchase it, please visit our website at http://www.stoutandstout.com/

Too Many People

Have you ever gone to a popular destination and wanted to take some pictures of it, only to find that it is impossible to get a nice shot without anyone in the picture? Take a look at the example below of San Francisco City Hall we took:

If you look closely you can see people standing in the doorway of the building as well as near it. Also some people are walking behind the fence. If you have Photoshop CS5 you can use content aware fill, and this will get rid of some of the people, however it does not do a good job for areas such as behind the fence or in the doorway.

One key to make your life a lot easier when you are trying to get rid of the people is to take a lot of pictures of the scene, in this case we took about 20 pictures of the same thing. The reason for this is in each photo the people for the most part are not going to be in the same place. What we did in Photoshop was first used content aware on the easy parts to get rid of.

The harder parts such as the door we took some other images we had of the scene where no one was there, we took that photo and put it in a layer with the main photo we were working with. We then took a layer mask and painted in the door where nobody was standing, we did this as for other problem areas as well. After doing this we got and image of the scene below, which has no people in it:

As you can see no more people are in the picture, and it was not that hard to do. To see the final touched up full sized image please visit our website at http://www.stoutandstout.com/ , this image as well as others can be purchased at our website.