Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is over for some time now, but some people are still saying their goodbyes, like the team of tvtag that gave Walter White a proper sendoff, into space…

By Sebastien Grobelny

Macro

Macro is an extreme close-up.
I believe these links deserve a close-up 😉

• Challenges: You can still submit, vote and see results on Celine’s blog.
• Eyey Opener: New tutorial seen on PetaPixel, called How to ‘Make Eyes Look Amazing’ In Photoshop added to the Tutorial page.
• May the 4th…: Another article on FStoppers that mixes photography and Star Wars action figures.
• Here comes the sun: Another PetaPixel tutorial to add sun beams to a picture (also added to the tutorial page)
• This is the end: I didn’t renew my Aminus account and don’t plan on adding anything new to it.
• No Surprises: FStoppers listed the 48 photographers to follow on 500px and *shockingly* I’m not in the list 😉 I already followed a lot but added some more with that.

By Sebastien Grobelny

Macro

Macro is an extreme close-up.
I believe these links deserve a close-up 😉

• Challenges: You can still submit, vote and see results on Celine’s blog.
• I finally created a page with tutorials I find useful. Don’t hesitate to propose your addition in the comments section. Last addition are “How to fix color banding” from FStoppers and “How to Enhance Detail and Texture with Intelligent High Pass Sharpening” from Vibranshot
• Vivian Maier: Thanks to Donald at 50’lux, I heard about Vivan Maier and I find the trailer and the story fascinating.
• The Clone Wars: It is no secret I’m a big Star Wars fan and I love to mix toys and “real” subjects, so imagine my joy when 500px did a blog post about Stormtroopers doing Awesome things
• Wild Portraits: Petapixel had a beautiful post on Intimate black and white portraits of exotic animals in captivity that I recommend for the beautiful pictures.

Kiss me

By Sebastien Grobelny

The Brooklyn Juggler and Batman at Fete Paradiso

If you remember well, we already saw that Bane was at the Fete Paradiso and wanted candy, but did you know that Batman was there the same day? He rudely interrupted Kyle Petersen aka The Brooklyn Juggler. My guess is that he thought that the Juggler was another villain from the Riddler family.

By Sebastien Grobelny

Bane Wants Candy

I’m looking to do more composites in the future and I thought that the below picture was an interesting starting point as there is some kind of an empty space on the right side.

I wondered who she could face and thought that Bane was a good opposite.

Here’s the Bane I used for the composite.

Here’s the final result.

I think Bane could have been bigger but I think it could have made him less human. My main goal today was to do a quick selection and integration and I learned some actions I will most likely reuse. After all my last “composite” was this one. My biggest issue though was the difference of focus (she’s softer than he his) but I didn’t manage to find an easy solution. I guess that the best is to plan for the composite in advance.

By Sebastien Grobelny

Catwoman

After the fun with Bane and Batman it was time for Selena Kyle.
Here’s my final result

I was looking for a dramatic effect and be able to control the light.
Below is the setup I used. It’s the 100mm lens with 2 Canon 550EX flash. The flash with the soft box (white diffuser on the right, closest to the camera) will be called B while the other one one the left will be called A.

I moved A and B and lot and checked the results and adjusted each time. When the light was ok, I discovered that I didn’t like some of the positioning of Selena so I changed it and had to redo the lights. In total I ended up taking 70 pictures in close to an hour. Below are the final 3. The only difference  was on the balance of the flash. With the trigger I can give more or less power to a group of flash.

Flash A and B have equal power.

Flash A has 4 more power than flash B

Flash A has twice the power of flash B

I used the 2-1 setup as the starting point for the edit.
Here are the major steps I applied.

• In Lightroom 5: Adjust the clarity
• In Lightroom 5: With a brush, increase the exposure slightly on the right hand
• In Photoshop CS6 : duplicate the layer and remove the spots and the unwanted details with the healing tool
• In Photoshop CS6 : with the magic wand on the face, selected the burnt areas and used the fill option with content aware set. Then I extended the selection with the feather option and applied a surface blur
• In Photoshop CS6 : Duplicated the layer and applied a surface blur. I then used a layer mask to have this only applied on the chest and changed the opacity to keep a bit of texture
• In Photoshop CS6 : I fixed the articulated split at the belly with another selection and content aware file
• In Photoshop CS6 : I fixed the wrist with taking a part of the arm, copying it, transforming it to cover the wrist and then merge and healing.
• In Photoshop CS6 : I cropped to get tighter to the subject.
• In Photoshop CS6 : Duplicated the layer and used multiply to darken the whole. Then used a mask to reveal the right arm, whip, chest and face.
• In Photoshop CS6 : Flipped the canvas horizontally as I preferred this direction.

Voila. Please let me know what you think of it and if you would have done anything differently.

By Sebastien Grobelny

Bane

Finally unpacked my great gifts I received for my birthday and Christmas. I had a lot of fun with my Bane action figure. I was just looking for something quick and see if I could make Bane somewhat menacing. Soon he should meet the Dark Knight!

By Sebastien Grobelny

The Dark Knight

The daily prompt of the day at The Daily Post is Heroic. I ask you, who is a better Hero than The Dark Knight?

For my birthday I received from Claire and Jerome a beautiful Catwoman and from the lovely wife, a Bane set. Can’t wait to “play” with it!

Macro

Macro is an extreme close-up.
I believe these links deserve a close-up 😉

• Challenges: You can still submit for Best of 49 (11/25 – 12/01), Theme 49 : Curves Lines, Technique 25: Water from Faucet and Monthly Project 12: Winter on Photoblogchallenges. You can still vote until Sunday too!
• Got no winner for the contest day. I will close it on the 12/14 the latest.
• Ever wondered if we could see climate changes impacts? Have a look over at Gizmodo’s article
• Everybody heard about the Amazon drones…Have you heard about the next step? Rockets?
• Amazing idea and execution: exploding toy cars
• This is not a portrait of Morgan Freeman

By Sebastien Grobelny

Macro

Macro is an extreme close-up.
I believe these links deserve a close-up 😉

• Challenges: You can still submit for Best of 48 (11/18 – 11/24), Theme 48 : Begins with “I” or “J”, Technique 24: Colorful Macro and Monthly Project 11: One Hour on Photoblogchallenges. You can still vote until Sunday too!
• Christine suggested Larkspur as an answer for the Buds in Monument Valley contest. Not sure if it’s correct, but being the only answer I will say it’s the closest. Congratulations to her! A new challenge will be released on Friday 11/29 at 10AM with hints given during the day on twitter.
• I love graffiti and timelapse. Here’s a cool combo
• Kurt and Edwige Moses had a great idea. Telling stories with toys! They are featured on Petapixel here
• Learned through the deceased G4 that everything is better with dubstep. Here’s a San Francisco timelapse with dubstep!
• Last week, I showed you the camera rig and a curious tiger…This week it’s a camera rig and curious lions!

By Sebastien Grobelny