Preview of Ultimate HDR Preset Pack
HDR Images HDR (High Dynamic Range) is one of the most popular photo editing and processing techniques out there. There are numerous software which let you create HDR images from multiple Exposures. However using these software requires some knowledge and understanding of the different sliders and options in these software. This can be intimidating to some people who'd like a simple and quick way to create HDR images. Well now you can!! HDR in less than 10 seconds using on Lightroom. For best results you should be shooting in RAW (JPEG won't produce best results). Here is a preview of the...
Making of Dubai Shuttle Picture
In this walkthrough, I will share the steps in the making of this photo. I will show the exact steps in Lightroom on how I took this ordinary image straight out of the camera into a nice & pleasing result you see below. Before we start the editing process, the a quick word on how this was taken. As you can see there are two tracks so I was on board one shuttle and the other was approaching as both of them cross. I laid the camera on the window sill and adjusted the camera in Aperture Priority mode until the shutter speed was slowed down to 1/5th of a second. I put pressure on the camera,...
Applying Texture to your Photographs
Textures are really cool and unique way to give you photographs a whole new feel and emotion. When done correctly it can result is some outstanding photographs. I love using textures on my images, and often will combine two to three textures to an image not just one. Below is one example. The original image lacked mood and was flat as it was taken on very Overcast day. Adding the texture to this image gave it an old and aged look. Last weekend I did some more work with textures as I was creating a tutorial video for my YouTube channel to help people create outstanding images with textures....
3 Steps to Taking Better Photographs of Kids
As parents, uncles, aunties and grandparents you will have young children or babies around you whom you love to photograph and photograph beautifully to capture their innocence. As a parent myself, I love to capture photos of my daughter doing various different things. However as I have keen interest in photography whenever I post a photo of my daughter on any social media, I get great response and likes. People often say that well you are a photographer so you can take great photos. And my belief is that everybody can take great photographs even if they are not a "photographer". So let's...
Rescuing Christmas Photo
Before Last Christmas when I was in Melbourne I captured what I thought was a decent shot but my Tokina 11-16mm Wide Angle Lens has some lens flare issues. This photo which I took at first glance looks like a complete loss. However with only a few edits in Photoshop and Lightroom I was able to rescue the photo. Once I loaded the image in Photoshop, I drew rough Selections as shown below and Feather the selection by 30px. I then applied an Adjustment Layer of Curves and darkened the selection. This got rid of all the Noise and Lens flare. Finally, once the image came back into Lightroom 5 I...
Lightroom Analytics – What kind of Photographer are You?
A great new tool for Lightroom called Lightroom Analytics is available (from version 3 to 5 of Lightroom) as a Plugin for your Lightroom which allow you to analyse your photographs and paint a picture of what kind of photographer you are. Which camera you use most (if you have a few cameras)? What kind of settings you commonly use with your camera eg. Aperture, Shutter or Manual modes? What kind of lens you use? Which do you use most? What focal range you mostly use? How do you modify your photos? So I decided to give it a try and see what behaviour or pattern would I see. Head over to...
How to Clean your Benro Tripod?
Benro Tripods are great, ever since I got my Benro Tripod (Benro C2682TB1 Transformer Travel Angel Carbon Fiber Tripod) I've loved using it. Its Carbon Fibre, compact and steady tripod that you can take with you everywhere with easy. It fits in any carry on luggage so its good for short trips. Ever since putting the tripod through its paces at the workshop with Jay and Varina Patel, it needed a bit of cleaning. Mostly due to Sand as it got into the grooves of the tripod. So I jumped online to find out how to clean the Carbon Fibre tripod, hoping that there will be simple instruction online...
A Faster Workflow – Must Know Lightroom Shortcuts
If you are using Lightroom version 3 or above, there are many shortcuts available in Lightroom. All of them are listed under "<ModuleName> Module Shortcuts" in the Help menu eg. Develop Module Shortcuts. However these shortcuts are not easy to print and therefore require memorising or writing down so that you can work faster in Lightroom. The Shortcuts below are the ones I call my top "Must know Lightroom Shortcuts". I use these and many other keyboards shorts in my workflow and frankly I can't live without them now. If you can memorise them that's brilliant otherwise just keep a print...
Landscape Workshop with Jay and Varina Patel
About Jay and Varina Patel This husband and wife duo is well known in the Landscape World of Photography. They travel to magnificent places and hike for miles to remote and exotic locations to bring us some amazing photographs. Check out Jay Patel and Varina Patel websites. Landscape Workshop Late 2013, they announced a Workshop for Australia in Port Stephens. The limited number of seats went very quickly and as so it happens I nabbed a place in the workshop. Soon after they sent everybody a brief survey to understand what people want to get out of their workshop. They then tailor the...
Thanks for your Support in 2013
A Year in Review 2013 was a great year for the site. The discovery and number of visitors went through the roof. Really excited and motivated me to create more content to share with our readers. Total Page Views for the year was just under 60,000 views which was thanks to 27,268 visitors that came to Photo Insomnia. Growth The first half of the year was fairly low volume traffic to the site but the...