Photography by Ricky Refuerzo » Post Processing

Cocoi + Irish’ Prenup at Island Cove

Ricky — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:20:56 +0000

Opening up 2009, I was commissioned to shot an impromptu pre-nuptial shoot of Cocoi and Irish yesterday at the Island Cove Resort & Leisure Park, they will be married this coming Saturday, 17 January 2009 at St. Michael’s Parish in Bacoor, Cavite.

About 80% of the shots were shot using strobist’ principle of remotely triggered flash gun, I used 1 SB800 remotely triggered using Nikon’s exclusive Creative Lighting System (CLS).

Camaraderie Photo Contest

Ricky — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:34:46 +0000

I heard the buzz of the latest photo contest from the Nikon Club Philippines forum, CAMERADERIE Photo Contest is being sponsored by Business Mirror & Coca Cola Philippines in cooperation with SM Malls.

Contest Mechanics:

This contest is open to amateur photographers only.

The contest title is Cameraderie. The BusinessMirror Photo Contest 2008 presented by Coca-Cola Export Corporation. This theme encompasses photographs of workplace environments and corporate happenings that will bare shades of emotions in human bonding ways, as well as healthy active lifestyles.

There is no limit to the number of entries to be submitted as long as accompanied by an entry form.

The photo must be taken during the contest period which is from June 2008 to August 31, 2008.

Images must be in raw or jpeg format, with pixels dimensions 2,550 (width), 3,300 (height) and not greater than 1,700 pixels. File size must be 8.5 x 11 inches and 300 and/or higher dpi (resolution). Major manipulation of main images through adding and subtracting is not allowed.

Entries must not have won any other contests/competitions nor have been published in any book or photography magazine and/or other publications. While photographer owns copyright to the photos, BusinessMirror shall have rights to exclusive use of winning photographs for two (2) years. Beyond that, photographer cannot use the winning photo to any rival of BusinessMirror and its partner.

Every entry should be accompanied with participant’s information in an entry form which can be found in BusinessMirror. Selected entries will be required to submit the original digital file for evaluation and publishing purposes on CD.

The following is criteria for the following:

Relevance to the theme 50%

Technical expertise 25%

Visual Impact and Creativity 25%

The decision of the board of judges is final.

The Champion will receive P50,000 while the 1st and 2nd placer will get P30,000 and P20,000 respectively. The nine (9) runner-ups will receive consolation prizes of P5,000 each.

Qualifying photographs will be displayed in an exhibit. Chosen photos will be used as corporate giveaways/collaterals.

The deadline for submission of photo entries is on August 31, 2008. These should be submitted to Marjorie Teresa R. Perez, Business Development Manager, BusinessMirror, 3rd Flr., Dominga Bldg. III Annex, 2113 Chino Roces Avenue corner DelaRosa Street, Makati City; telephone 814-0134/37 loc 111 or via mobile 0928-6312146 and 0927-6710321.

The sponsor, promoter, advertiser and participating outlets and their employees including their relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity or affinity are disqualified from joining the photo contest.

A DTI representative shall be invited to be present and witness the judging and presentation of winners.

Winners will be announced on October 10, 2008 during the BusinessMirror 3rd year anniversary celebration.

Winners should be notified through registered mail.

Cash prizes must be claimed within 60 days from receipt of notification and must present valid ID, registered notification and the entry form.

BusinessMirror shall pay the winner’s tax on prizes in excess of P10,000.00.

Parade of the Marching Bands

Ricky — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:02:56 +0000

The highlight of the festivities of the Bacoor Town Fiesta is the Parade of the Marching Bands, 9 local bands & 5 bands from the neighboring municipalities marched & display their skills along the Evangelista St. of the Town of Bacoor.

Anak Zapote Band, if I’m not mistaken the oldest band in Bacoor.

Banda 96, is one of the 2 pioneer band in Bacoor.

D’ Original Band was formed in honor of the late Prof. Hilarion F. Rubio, a native of Digman, Bacoor, Cavite.

Family Band (as I heard) is the newest band in town.

Banda 1 of Gov. P.F. Espiritu, one of the 4 bands coming from Barangay Panapaan.

Banda 8, another band coming from Bgy. Panapaan.

San Lorenzo Ruiz Band from Barangay Aniban, Bacoor.

St. Michael’s Band also from Panapaan.

The pioneer band from Panapaan, Bacoor, the El Gobernador Band.

Now the bands from the neighboring municipalities:

Banda 74 from Kawit, Cavite.

Banda San Roque of Silang, Cavite.

Banda Sta. Monica of Tanza, Cavite.

Banda 93 of Silang Cavite.

And the Rosarian Band from Rosario, Cavite.

The best Marching Band was judged after the parade together with the best Marching Majorette, Best Drum Major & Baton Twirling Contest. The contest were only opened to the 5 guest bands, Bacoor’s Town Mayor, Hon. Edwin “Strike” Revilla was there to witness the activity & award the winners with prizes.

For those who asked on how I did the “painting” look on the photos, blame the LucisArt@trade; Photoshop plug-in for that.

Post Processing: Infrared

Ricky — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:09:09 +0000

I haven’t shooting infrared photos for quite a while now, I’m still trying to look for a good post-processing technique to give my photos a better look. After a long research on the web, I think I finally saw the PP style that suites me most.

Like what I’ve mentioned in my first post about infrared photography, the key is to shoot raw (NEF), this way, there’s more room for post-processing.

I opened the same photo that I used on that post & processed it in a different manner. For the recap, here’s the EXIF info:

Capture Mode: RAW
White Balance: 3000°K (Fluorescent +3)
Aperture: f8
Shutter Speed: 1 Sec.

Now the juicy part, I mean the post processing, first, Perform the Auto-Levels (SHIFT+CTRL+L for windows).

Notice the change of color hue from the reddish cast into a purplish image, step 2 requires duplicating the layer (Layers –> Duplicate Layers). Make sure that you selected the uppermost layer & you are now ready to perform step no. 3 which is Inverting the Color (CTL+I).

The Background Layer must remain in a purple cast while the top most layer must have the greenish look.

Step 4 is Blending the 2 layers, the blend mode of the top layer must be set to Color & that’s it. You can do some more adjustments like sharpening, etc. I prefer adding some Gaussian Blur & Noise to the image to enhance its look.

Finally, the finished product.

I believe that there’s no “perfect” post-processing style, I just think that this is better than the monochrome look that I used to doing.

The Strobists Fever

Ricky — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:56:29 +0000

I got infected by the strobists fever, after the first PiPho Strobist Meet-up at UP last month, I decided to upgrade my current set-up.

As you may recall, my set-up was a little crude, I was using a tripod then, I decided to purchase (1) a 6′ light stand, a shoot through umbrella & a umbrella adapter with hot-shoe connection.

The current set-up has given me extra flexibility, the extra height of the stand & the diffusing capability of the umbrella to soften the shadow.

I did some test shot using the current set-up & I’m quite satisfied with it’s result.

This shot of the bear was taken without the help of the shoot through umbrella. Notice the shadow of the right side?

As you can see the on the next photo, the shadow is more detailed, which is not good in shooting still life or even in portraiture.

So what else is missing?

Another speedlight (flash), probably an SB800 or SB600
Another light stand
Another umbrella or a soft box
Umbrella adapter

Good thing that I can take advantage of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS), this makes the flash (IR/RF) commander optional.

WS#4 – Surreal

Ricky — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:10:42 +0000

Taken using a Hoya R72 Infrared filter attached to the lens of my camera, I took this photo yesterday around noon when the sun is at it’s mightiest. This is just another variant of infrared photography, primarily purple cast. I experimented on the channel mixer playing on the blue & red channel.

Although I prefer the black & white infrared, this is just another option that you might try.

A blessed week to all.

Make my sky bluer

Ricky — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:19:46 +0000

I love shooting landscapes, this is one the reasons why I took photography as a hobby. But sometimes the best camera & lens are not enough to capture the real beauty of the scene, like what happened in this photo.

This photo was taken last March in Tarlac, around noon & that explains why the sky was not that blue. A Circular Polarizing Filter (CPL) could have done the job for me but unfortunately I don’t have one. Although I believe that having taken this the right way (with the CPL attached to my lens) is the best way to do it, it’s good to know that this can be corrected using Photoshop. I found this tutorial from Ken Rockwell about Polarizer & tried it. It’s really simple.

Open the photo that you want to edit
Create a new layer (Layer –> New –> Layer), Name it as GRAD & set mode as Soft Light
Select the GRADIENT TOOL from the tools palette (or just hit ‘G’), make sure of the following:
- Be sure you have the default foreground and background colors, black and white, if you are not sure, press ‘D’ to set the colors to default.
- Make sure that the “Linear” option is selected.
- That the “background to transparent” grad is selected.
Click, hold & drag until you reach the horizon
Select the background layer (where the photo is)
Click on the black & white button on the lower part of the Layers Palette & select the “Selective Color” option on the drop-down list
Change the colors option to Cyans: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
Now, change the color option to Blues: adjust the Cyan level to 100 & Magenta level to 100
Click OK.

That’s it! You can play along with the selective color to fit yout taste, by doing that, I was able to achieve a bluer sky.

Like what I said before (and earlier) capturing it the right way is still the best option, photoshop is available just to enhance what is already a beautiful photo.

My Black & White Processing Style

Ricky — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:13:11 +0000

I’m a big black & white fan, in fact, I’ve dedicated a sub-domain to showcase my black & white photos, even during my film photography days, I took several photos using black & white film, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to salvage it. Digital photography eased up the process of taking black & white photographs, some cameras (like my D80) has a built in Black & White feature complete with filter settings, for those camera that does not include this feature, post processing colored photos into black & white is just a few clicks away.

For my post-processing style, I don’t just use the black & white conversion feature of the Photoshop, I put extra effort (& labor) to fit my own taste & this is what I’m sharing right now.

I make sure that I start with a good photograph, right composition & proper exposure is the key. I picked this photo of a smiling kid & will try to convert it into black & white.

The first thing that I did is to convert the picture into monochrome using Channel Mixer [Image --> Adjustments --> Channel Mixer], then I clicked on the Monochrome box located on the lower left portion of the pop-up window. Then, I adjusted the Red, Blue & Green channels to fit my taste [For this project Red = +20, Blue = +60 & Green = +20), once satisfied, just click OK for the changes to take effect.

The next step is to duplicate the layer [Layer --> Duplicate Layer], once the layer has been duplicated, change the Blending Mode to Overlay, notice that the photo will lighten a little bit. It’s now time to apply some filter.

On the menu, click on Filter –> Blur –> Gaussian Blur, I normally apply a filter radius ranging from 10 to 20 pixels, on this project, I opted to have it at 15 pixels.

Next on the filters list is the Noise [Filter --> Noise --> Add Noise] for the grainy effect on the finished product. I don’t want the noise to be overpowering so I just set it at 7.

After that, I just merged the layers [ctrl+Shift+E], resized the photo & that’s basically it.

Just remember that while photoshop is there to help us enhance our photos, what really matters is how we take the pictures, our skill is still the most important thing to develop.