Lost and Found
I was going through my files just now, trying to trim a little off the top of my massive 68GB Dropbox folder, and I came across a couple of old images. A couple of weeks ago, I went out into my backyard and attempted some proof-of-concept work for the new kind of light painting Mr. Skocko had been encouraging. I took the 5D and one of the Mac Lab’s multicolored flashlights and walked to some cacti in my yard. The flashlight had suffered severe damage sometime during the chaos at Woodhaven Park, and so it would only give off a couple of colors (instead of 10). I set up the camera and shined different colored light at two cacti. The result looked good and I could easily envision what the final product would look like, so I files the images away without any work in Photoshop.
I found them just now, and decided to see what Camera Raw could do. And yet again, I learned something cool (synchronize settings across multiple images). Because the colors that the damaged flashlight created were only moderately exciting, I changed them significantly in Camera Raw, and put the Spot Removal Tool to good use. I happened to stumble across the exact settings that removed all unnatural color from the cacti, and so I decided to take that idea and run with it, tailoring the remaining editing so as to reveal only the light on the ground. I merged them in Photoshop, which proved more difficult than I expected, as the different angles of the light proved difficult to combine in a pleasing way. I like the finished product, but I didn’t put much effort towards it, as I have more important things to do (I uncovered some tutorials on focusing I had made a while back too). More on those tutorials later.
Update: Don’t forget to check out Mac Lab Media’s latest release, Stop Bullying.
Another Update: There are six new movies on this page (in and around the focusing section).
