“New Light Through Old Windows” is an album by Chris Rea. You may not know who Chris Rea is, or remember the album, but “New Light Through Old Windows” should be a mantra for any photographer who wants to improve his or her craft. if you photograph the same areas, people or objects over and over again using the same techniques, you get the same results. To improve your photography you either need to photograph different people, places, or things, and photograph them in a way that you’ve not photographed them before. This could mean exploring a new place, photographing a person you’ve never photographed before or using a different lens or different camera settings to achieve a different look.

Another way you can let new light in through old windows is by using different techniques in Aperture, Lightroom or Photoshop. Experiment with different filters. or different ways of processing RAW images. Play with the color temperature settings, change the Vibrance, Clarity, and/or Saturation settings. Want a dreamy look for your portrait? Drag the Clarity Slider to -100. What, you say you don’t want the dreamy look on the whole image? Use the Adjustment Brush to paint Clarity settings onto specific parts of the image. These are a couple of suggestions. The possible combinations for achieving different effects are limited only by your imagination. If you have an application like Lightroom that has presets you can modify, tweak the settings to achieve different results. When you see something you like, save it as a new preset. In Photoshop you have Adjustment Layers, which is a wonderful tool for getting a different look to your images. If you’re stuck for new things to try, you can find tons of techniques by entering the name of your software and the key phrase “special effects” in your favorite search engine.

Recently Roxanne and I let some new light in through old windows. We were exploring a nature museum near Sarasota. We didn’t have much luck there. We arrived in plenty of time, but lo and behold, they were holding a special event and decided to close early. We knew about the special event from their website, but there was no notice that they were closing early. The gatekeeper, who mentioned that he was “plankton on the food chain” –we’re sending him an eBook on self esteem–, decided to take our money and let us in anyway. But we didn’t get full disclosure as most of the exhibits were locked up tighter than England’s “Crown Jewels.” We made the best of a bad situation, got a few good images, and left before the gatekeeper’s brow furrowed any further and self esteem plummeted any lower.

Undaunted we moved on and ended up stopping at a roadside vegetable store. Roxanne had the lyrics of Frank Zappa’s “Call Any Vegetable” floating through her head as we photographed the fruits, veggies, and stuff in the store. We took a quick break for an ice cream cone and then we ventured behind the store. There were farm animals, a gorgeous peacock, and lots of cool old wagon wheels and the like. We had a blast photographing the animals and objects with our Lensbaby Composers. When I was processing the images, I experimented in Photoshop with my favorite texture technique using some textures I’ve never used before. New Light Through Old Windows. Indeed. If you get in a rut with your photography, try letting some new light in through old windows.

Sometimes I’m disappointed with digital images. They just don’t seem to capture the granduer that I see when I visit a scenic vista like Myakka River. Fortunately there are tools to bring out the best in images, Photomatix is one such tool. I used Photomatix to merge three different exposures of this scene into an HDR image. Then I rendered the image using Photomatix Detail Mapping. Now this is what I remember  seeing when I clicked the shutter.

I started experimenting with HDR in Photoshop. HDR (High Dynamic Range) images are created with 3 or more exposures of the same scene. When you create HDR images, you need to use a tripod so the exposures are pin registered. This can be tricky in windy conditions. Use your camera AEB (Auto-Exposure-Bracketing) and create one exposure that’s -2 EV, one that’s 0 EV and one that’s +2 EV. In Photoshop, you merge them into an HDR document. The conversion to an 8-bit image can be a bit tricky. Another alternative is a product called Photomatix. This application lets you blend the 3 exposures as an HDR image, and then apply Tone Mapping for the final result. The following image of the Myakka River was photographed as a single exposure. In Lightroom I exported the file with the previously mentioned exposure values as 16-bit images, and converted them to an HDR image with Photomatix.

Recently I had a chance to photograph the 12 Hours of Sebring the right way, with a photographer’s pass. Getting a press pass is not as difficult as you might think. Get to know the editor of the sports section of your local newspaper, and show him some of your work. Volunteer to cover an event to show the editor you can deliver quality photos. Get the required information from the editor: image size, resolution, E Mail address to send the image to and so on. If you do the job right, one or more of your images will be published. The following is an image I photographed at the 12 Hours of Sebring. The publisher used one of my shots of the start in the Sunday edition of the paper. To view a gallery of images from Sebring, click here: Sebring Photo Gallery

Point and shoot cameras are convenient when you want to take pictures without being noticed. When you carry a big digital SLR with you and point it at someone, they look the other way. Carry a small point and shoot camera with you, place the strap over your neck and turn the camera on. When you see something interesting, press the shutter button to capture your image. With a point and shoot camera, you can get wonderful candid shots like the following.

This image started life as a shot of ornaments in a store window. I used the Polar Coordinates filter in Photoshop to get the effect you see here. In episode 32 of Pixelicious I have a video tutorial that shows how to duplicate the effect. To view the episode, click here: Pixelicious-Episode 32.

The latest technology taunts photographers with more megapixels, anti-dust technology, live-view, and so on. Pentax, Nikon, and Sony have been upping the ante for about a year. Now Canon’s joined the fray with an updated EOS 5D. The new Canon EOS 5D MKll features integrated sensor cleaning, 21-megapixel captures, live-view, a 3-inch monitor, and much more. I own the first iteration of the 5D. Do I want its big brother? You betcha. I’m sure a lot of other photographers who own the EOS 5D feel the same way. So what do you do when you’re on a budget and can’t afford or don’t want to keep your trusty two-year old EOS 5D, or for that matter, any piece of old gear that you’ve replaced? Can you say eBay?

When my trusty Minolta 35mm camera died, I grudgingly made the switch to digital. After researching what was on the market, I decided to purchase a Canon EOS 10D and bought a couple of EF lenses. I was very happy with the camera except for the amount of time it took the camera to power on. Then along came the EOS 20D. When I read the spec sheet and noticed the start up time had been reduced, I wanted one. So I shopped for the best deal I could find and bought one. But I couldn’t afford and didn’t need two digital SLR bodies. I put the 10D up for auction on eBay. A week later, the camera sold for seventy percent of what I paid for it. Not bad considering I’d used the camera for a year.

I grew to love the 20D. It was a great camera, took sharp pictures, and the camera powered up almost instantly. But I shoot landscapes. Therefore I use a wide angle focal lengths a lot. The Focal Length Multiplier for the 20D is 1.6, which means a 20mm wide angle lens acts like a 32mm lens on the 20D. Almost a year after I purchased the 20D, Canon introduced the 5D, which has a full-frame sensor; no focal length multiplier. I wanted one in the worst way, but balked at spending that much money. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted one. Finally I succumbed to my desire, found the best deal from a reputable online camera store and bought one. I put my 20D up for auction the Saturday after my 5D was delivered. Again I recouped almost seventy percent of my investment after using the camera for a year. It was amazing to watch interested bidders battle each other, driving the selling price of the camera higher and higher. eBay’s is the busiest online auction site; a great place to sell photo gear you’re no longer using.

Now I’m in a quandary. I want the new 5D MKll and I also want to keep my trusty 5D as a backup camera when I shoot weddings. It would also be useful to shoot events with two cameras with different lenses mounted. Even though the list price of the 5D MKll is about $700 less than the original 5D, the economy and sky-rocketing gas prices is causing most Americans — including me — to become very frugal. But the new 5D won’t be available until November. That gives me two and a half months to come up with the money. You can bet I’ll be putting the gear I don’t use frequently up for auction on eBay. My goal is to sell enough to pay cash for the new 5D MKll when it’s available. In fact, I’m putting one lens up for auction on Sunday.

Machinery that’s stood that test of time and exposed to the relentless forces of Mother Nature, ages gracefully. This gear and chain are part of an old piece of farm machinery. The rusted metal develops a wonderful patina and texture. When I photograph an object like this, I believe less is more. If I had moved back to frame the entire piece of machinery, the texure of the rust would be lost.

Another thing to keep in mind when photographing old machinery is your choice of lens and exposure settings. To isolate the gear and chain from the rest of the machine, I photographed the image with an 85 mm lens at f/1.8. The large aperture limited the depth of field to the parts of the machine I wanted to which I wanted to attract the viewer’s attention.

In Lightroom, I used the Direct Positive preset as my starting point. I increased Clarity, Vibrance and Saturation to make the image pop. I then applied Split Toning. To see some video podcasts on Lightroom 2, visit our sister web site Pixelicious.

Sometimes bad things happen to good cars. Sometimes they wear out. In both scenarios, they usually end up in a junkyard. The cracked windshield and vibrant colors attracted me to this old forgotten warhorse. I took a few pictures and moved on. When I opened the image in Photoshop, it looked kind of bland, and certain parts of the image were overexposed. Fortunately, the original image was a RAW file. I opened the image again as a Smart Object. I made a copy of the Smart Object, which meant I could edit both layers independtly. I tweaked the exposure on the top layer for the highlights, rasterized the layer, and then created selection based on luminance by Ctrl-clicking the RGB channel in the top layer. After feathering the mask, I pressed the Backspace key to delete the areas outside of the selection. The result was increased dynamic range. I then merged the layers, and created a duplicate of the merged layer. You can view a video tutorial of this technique in the Placing a RAW file as a Smart Object section of my Pixelicious podcast, episode 28. Click here to see the podcast: Episode 28.

To bring out the color I applied a 20-pixel gaussian blur to the duplicate layer and changed the blend mode to Soft Light. This gave the image a soft glow and enhanced the colors. To make the reds pop, I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, and increased the saturation of the reds. With a bit of imagination, and some pixel magic in Photoshop, you can turn photos of old objects into compelling iamges.