On Monday i dragged my poor husband Chris (clawfish) down to New Brighton. Why? Because we had the most fantastic high tide at mid day combined with high winds, sunshine and beautiful cloudy sky’s. I have recently stumbled upon a youtube video of a guy teaching a group of photographers how to make HDR photos in Photomatix Pro. I have been using photoshop and the HDR tool in that program, however i was not getting the results that i wanted. I wanted outstanding images, i know you need great images to start with and i knew i could get those but how would i get the finished image that i craved. And then along comes BHphotovideopro and shows me in a short video what i needed to do. So taking my poor husband, my Nikon D3100, which i have just discovered does not take bracketed exposures :(, and my tripod we headed off down to Fort Perch lighthouse knowing we would come home with some great images. What we didnt realise was that we would also come home covered in sand, froth from the water and with totally windswept hair.(Well me not Chris, he is a bit follicly challenged, sorry Chris.) I was so excited to load the pictures onto my laptop. I shot in raw as i believe this is the optimum for your images, opened them in Photoshop Bridge and was really pleased at my results. I chose the three images i needed, loaded them into Photomatix Pro and let it do its thing. A couple of the images came out, well wonky but I got six images that i am so pleased with, i know they need some work in Photoshop but until i figure what to do with them, then they are the best HDR images i own. I have shared them on facebook and twitter and had a lot of views and likes, one thing bothers the hell out of me though, why doesn’t anyone comment on them! How do you learn if no one tells you their opinions on what you produce. I would love to hear what they think and feel i am grown up enough not to be gutted when the idiot tells me he can do better than me, lol. So, if you have a comment, can give me constructive advice, i will appreciate it, give it a go and if it works, great. If you dont like my work tough! Its my style, my take on the genre and really i am the only one who has to be proud of what i produce. Take a look at the images, feast your eyes on the wonder of New Brighton beach and please, let me know what you think. Thanks. x
Spikey Mouse Photography Blog 
Reblogged this on velvetmedia and commented:
A wonderful afternoon with my wife Karen who too some great images
They look great Karen, a friend of mine has been trying to push me towards photomatix it does look good. I,m like you with photoshop, but I have to get some video editing software before I change over 😦 …good photo’s
Thanks for the comment, would it help to get a full copy for free? I say this in a quiet voice lol, Oh and my daughter is using some cool video editing thing and doing a great job i hasten to add, shes 10, if i can remember what it is i will let you know.
brilliant ..thank you, apparently video is the future 🙂 thought we would dip our toe and see what it’s like . Good luck with the photo’s they’re looking really good 🙂
my daughter has been using camstudio very successfully.
Hey, lovely images. I have a basic knowledge and understanding of photography but have now reverted to pocket camera as I never had my kit with me when I needed it AND found most things I wanted to shoot meant I missed the action elsewhere!!!!
Doesn’t New Brighton look lovely and different in your images. And the same around Wirral on your Flickr account. Really nice.
I notice you have all rights protected on Flickr, can I contact you in the future if we want to use an image on WirralPeople?
And slightly off topic to wirralhub……I do get your tweets and I do retweet them. We have to support our great peninsula!
James, sure you can ask about any of the photos. All i ask is that you credit me with any photo you would like to use, i do a similar thing for another on line mag. Thanks for the retweets, i dont get on to twitter very much, probably has something to do with children stealing laptop time lol. I understand what you mean about missing out on all of the good stuff when you are struggling to frame a shot, i dont really use my dslr for family outings as you do miss out, i generally use my mobile phone camera then and use my dslr when i decide there is something i especially want to photograph.
Thanks, I will keep an eye out for future pics! Best wishes
I am too much of a novice at photography to critically analyze…though my hubby at one time loved and even developed his own black and whites…way back in the 1970’s. I say take photos of what you like and enjoy the process.
Continued success.
Thank you, its all down to personal taste and anyone else who says its just not photography is a snob! 😉 by the way i too developed my own b+w film, still love it!
Karen, I was watching Chris’ fascination lesson on HDR this afternoon, but I had to leave for an appointment. I’ve been waiting for a couple years to find someone who could teach me how to do HDR. He does a great job!
Is there anyway I can go back to run it again and skip through the parts I already saw. I took notes as he went along. Also, is there anyway I could get the handouts he gave the class? If there’s a charge, please let me know what it is. Thanks for whatever help you can give me….Leslie
Leslie, sorry its taken so long you ended up in the spam file. I chanced upon the video, dont know him or any other details other than what is in the video sorry.