Yosemite

  1. The Mighty Sequoias of the Mariposa Grove

    This is an HDR photo taken in the Mariposa Grove which is located in the Yosemite National Park. It's about a half hour from the Yosemite Valley. At some point in your life you've probably seen a small car or beetle driving through a giant Sequoia tree. That tree use to be in this grove until it collapsed. Turns out you can't cut a giant hole through a tree and expect it to live. I guess they didn't realize that in the 1960's.

    To create this look I used three exposures, each two stops from each other. Combined them to form a single HDR photo in Photomatix then used Photoshop for a bunch of color and I applied a texture that I layered a few times mixing the blending modes between Overlay, Hard Light and Darken. 

    Today's HDR Photo

    Mariposa Grove Sequoias. Some of the mighty Sequoias of the Mariposa Grove. With a few texture layers.

  2. The Great Yosemite Valley

    This HDR photo is taken from the view right as you enter Yosemite Valley. It's pretty breath taking in real life. There is so much scale and scope to this place you feel so small driving through it. Kind of like the Grand Canyon. I like this place better though. More stuff to do.

    I did my usual processing on this photo. It's a three exposure sequenced combined in Photomatix then only processed in Lightroom 4. Usually I'll bring my photos into Photoshop for a little extra color and touch up work that just can't be done in Lightroom, but in this case there was no need. 

    Today's HDR Photo - The Great Yosemite Valley

    The Great Yosemite Valley of California This is an HDR Photo of Yosemite Valley right as you enter from the upper road. I never came this way last time I was here so this view was new to me. And pretty much one of the most amazing things I've seen.

  3. Trail Through Mariposa Grove

    After staying in Yosemite Valley all day and night it was time to head home. On the way back we stopped at the Mariposa Grove. The largest  Sequoia Grove in Yosemite. There was this cool little bridge and the sun was peaking out just for a second to warm up the trees a bit with it's light. 

    This is actually one of those photos where I kind of wish I would have shot it HDR since the dynamic range of the scene was fairly high, but it was cold and I didn't want to deal with my tripod. When it's in the 30's-40's touching a metal tripod with bare hands isn't fun. None the less it turned out pretty cool. Sequoias are surprisingly really difficult to shoot because they are so big.

    Today's Photo - Trail Through Mariposa Grove

    Trail through the Mariposa Grove This is the largest Sequoia Grove in Yosemite. I thought this spot was cool as you cross this wooden bridge near the entrance of the grove. Every time I'm up here I'm always impressed by how huge the Sequoia trees can get.

  4. Old Couple of Yosemite Valley

    I haven't been doing too many HDR's lately but this shot called for it. There was this old couple just sitting there and soaking up the beauty of Yosemite Valley and the epic Half Dome. I love having people in my landscapes. It really helps with scale and just seems to add a whole new element.

    When my generation is old we'll be sitting there but playing on our ipones since we are too a.d.d. to just stop and enjoy what's around us. 

    Today's HDR Photo - Old Couple of Yosemite Valley

    Old Couple of Yosemite Valley It was pretty refreshing seeing this old couple pull out some chairs to just sit and soak up the beauty around them. You don't see people doing this much anymore.

  5. The Adventurer

    This is a photo of my wife on one of our adventures. This photo was taken on our hike to Vernal Falls in the Yosemite Valley.

    I did a ton of processing on this one. Adding fake light leaks and lens flares by painting on warm or cool tones on a new layer in Photoshop then setting the blending mode to Hard Light. Seems to work pretty well as long as there is a strong light source already in the image. I then did the final color in Lightroom using my Retro Collection Presets. 

    Here is the raw photo

    Yumiko at Vernal Falls Yosemite

    Here is another look I liked a lot

    Yumiko at Vernal Falls Yosemite Another Look

    I have a lot of fun processing my images like this. It's fun exploring various looks and seeing what I can come up with. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to my photoshop. Getting the colors right is tricky. 

    Like mentioned, I've been using my Lightroom 4 Retro Collection Preset Pack. I really really like what I've done with them and use them as a starting look on almost every photo I do. Plus I spent forever building them. Months.

    I decided to start selling them and right I'm offering them for $2.00, since I am still testing them and working out any bugs that might be in paypal. If you want to see what a lot of the looks are, you can check out my Foods of Japan Flickr set. I used only my retro presets for all those photos. Be sure to let me know if there are any problems installing them or buying them. You can email me directly at info@alikgriffin.com

    Today's Photo - The Adventurer

    The Adventurer at Vernal Falls

  6. Sun Flares at Yosemite Falls

    There are two types of Landscape Photographers. Those that have a monks patience and can sit around waiting for the time of day and weather to be perfect, and those who know Photoshop.

    I did a lot of Photoshop work on this one. Here is what it looked like out of my camera.

    Yosemite Falls Raw

    To get the photo I used the Light Craft Workshop ND 500 which gave me 9 stops of ND. This allowed me to set my shutter to 30 seconds to get the nice streaky falls. Then I took the bright sun at the top and enhanced it to give me a lens flare look. I really like a good lens flare look and the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II just won't do it. So I added it in post by painting color and setting the blending mode to hard light. 

    Next I added a lens flare and did a bunch more color in Photoshop. The final color I did in Lightroom. Right now my workflow is a little messy because there are some effects I want but can only do in Photoshop. But I still do like to do a lot of my coloring in Lightroom because I feel like it's much quicker. But it does have its limiations. 

    Today's Photo - Sun Flares at Yosemite Falls

    Sun Flares at Yosemite Falls You don't realize it until you're there but the falls this time of year give off so much mist, while standing there watching them you slowly find yourself getting wet. Shooting the falls is like the grown up version of being a kid and running through the sprinklers.

  7. Looking up at the Yosemite Falls

    I was lucky enough to get to go to Yosemite for my second time this weekend. One of the many great thing about being married to my Japanese wife is when her friends and family visit from Japan, they always want to go on awesome road trips. This time we were thinking of going to the Grand Canyon but opted for Yosemite instead. Reason being, the Grand Canyon is only exciting for about 20 minutes, the you're bored. At Yosemite National park you could live there and never get bored. So much to do and see. 

    It's nice to be doing photography again. Bronchitis kicked my butt for about two weeks.

    Today's HDR Photo - Looking up at the Yosemite Falls

    Looking Up at the Yosemite Falls My second time to Yosemite National Forest. I went last year when I first started to get back into photography. Since then I've got a few new lenses and a whole new perspective. Weather was a bit nicer this time as well. Everything was a bit greener, and more wildlife was out and about. It's truely spring there.

  8. Yosemite North Dome

    Worked a 14 hour day today and I am beat. If you're ever thinking about working at an ad agency on trailers or commercials or whatever, don't. Get a job as a life guard or something. It's just not worth it. :)

    Anyway, I'm beat but found a photo from earlier this year of Yosemite that I've always liked but never got around to posting. I processed this when I first started using Color Efex Pro 4. It's a photo processing software that I started using few months back that I really like and has real been a game changer to my photography. You can checkout a general review I wrote up about it on my site here: Color Efex Pro Review. It's a pretty awesome and easy to use piece of software. 

    Yosemite's North Dome taken in the spring.

  9. New Softwares and Workflows

    Lately I've been obsessed with trying to learn different software and figure out how to get certain looks out of my photos. It drives me nuts when there is a look I want but don't know how to achieve. And sometimes the only way to get it is to paint the hell out of it in Photoshop. But last night I think I figured out a few things I've been wanting to do for awhile. I got this program called Topaz Detail 2. What this does is it sort of sharpens the image. But it's not like your traditional sharping. It actually takes features of the photo and sharpens them. It's like it looks at all the shapes and colors of the photo and views them as a topographical map. Then there are a bunch of options that let you increase and decrease the elevation. So you can have things really punch out at you, and you can really use it to define the edges of objects like the cliff face in the photo below.

    So far my workflow has been something like this:

    -Import into Lightroom, adjust some basic settings like lens correction and chromatic aberrations. 

    -Import into Color Efex Pro where I add the filter, Detail Enhancer set to Fine, Normal or Large depending the photo, usually at about 20-40%. Then I use Sunlight to give it a slight yellowish glow. And lastly Low Key. This just punches the whole contrast of the image and brings out the color and contrast.

    -Back in Lightroom I take this image and do more color adjustments. Bring out highlighted features or bringing up my shadows. Sometimes removing color cast or creative color adjustments. Also using some local brushes to enhance some features. So in a shot like this I can accent the cliff with a little yellow or orange to make some of the features pop more.

    -Then depending if I like the image or not, I'll bring it into Photoshop. In Photoshop I can really change the colors significantly. How I've been doing this is adding color to a blank layer with a brush, then Adjusting the layer options to Overlay or Soft light, until I get the desired golden brown color I want to enhance my trees or even create some glow. 

    -Then I add final sharpens and grain removal in Lightroom. But, if I'm not happy with the sharpness I use the program Topaz Detail 2 and really bring out the features. This sometimes changes the colors slightly so I'll bring it back into Lightroom and do final minor tweaks and export. 

    And of course after doing all that I try to leave the photo alone for a few hours or over night. Since you're perspective is so jaded after staring at something for a few hours straight, it's good to have some time away. That way when you come back you can usually see immediately what's wrong with your photo. It's also good to look at the photo in different lighting conditions as our eyes see our computer monitors differently depending on the ambient light that's around us. So sometimes when looking at a photo in the pitch black night of our living room it might feel too saturation or the cast might seem perfect, but then in the morning when the blue sunlight pours into our living room our perspective of the photo can change and suddenly it will feel as though it lacks contrast or saturation.

    Today's Photo of Yosemite's Bridal Falls

    Last March I went to Yosemite. I've only been to Yosemite once but I think march is a really good time to go. The water falls are very full and there is still some snow up at the higher elevations.

    Yosemite's Bridal Falls

  10. Yosemite's Half Dome - Now In Color!

    Earlier this year I went to the Yosemite Half Dome. I was still more of a hobby photographer back then not really taking it serious, just shooting for fun. And unfortunately I didn't shoot a single HDR photo.

    Lately I've started using some new editing software like Nik's Color Efex Pro 4. (Now owned by Google) This software far exceeds Lightroom 4.2 with it's abilities to really enhance landscapes. It has great tools like Detail Extractor and Sunlight which you can use to add brilliance and a nice yellow glow. Essential for shots like this. The only draw back is it sucks. It has a great interface but is painfully slow and crashes CONSTANTLY. So editing photos like this can take 1-2 hours. Sometimes it can go a little quicker if you already know what you're going for and have pre built recipes. Which kind of happens naturally since you always want to save your settings before rending which causes the crashes. Or trick I started doing while using this software is to work on the photos while doing other things. Make an adjustment, watch TV, make another adjustment, clip your toe nails. Actually what I've learned to do is apply some of the processor heavy effects, render it, then bring it back in. Makes using it a little better. I am kind of wondering if it is just my computer. I can't seem to get some other plugins in Lightroom to work at all. Like any of the Topaz tools. 

    I posted earlier this year of Yosemite's Half Dome but they were black and white. I just didn't know what to do with them in color or how to really enhance them until now. 

    So here it is Yosemite's Half Dome, now in Technicolor. 

    Yosemite, Half Dome, Color

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