Those of you that came to our workshops in Denver and Sydney have seen this new technique in person! It’s kind of strange, I must say. I really like the effect, though. Anyway, sometimes even with using sweet Aurora HDR, I still choose to leave a bit of noise in the sky. Then I bring it into Photoshop. There is a filter called “Oil Painting” — if you play with the sliders in there enough, you can get a smooth “swirling” of the noise, which feels quite alive and painterly to me. Try it! 🙂
Daily Photo – Revisiting Jogjakarta in Indonesia
Here’s a photo that I haven’t looked at processing for years and years. My other theory is that sometimes it’s okay to wait a very long time to process your photos because, over the years, you’ll learn many new techniques that weren’t otherwise available to you. This is a pretty good example of that! 🙂
Today’s the day I arrive at Burning Man! To see pics from the last six years, see my Burning Man Portfolio here.
What’s in Trey’s bag – Burning Man Edition
Which bags do I use in which situation? Here’s a quick video I made! Thanks again to the amazing team at Peak Design for making me so extra-bag-happy! 🙂 More on the Kickstarter over here
Daily Photo – Central Park, Made with Aurora HDR 2017
I’ve been making HUNDREDS of photos, testing out the new software and getting everything ready for the new release. This looks pretty good, eh? I went back and got some of my still unprocessed frames from over 5 years ago when I was in Central Park. It’s great fun to “drudge” up these old memories and re-process them with new software!
Pop over and check out the newly updated Plotagraph Portfolio. Remember it takes a while to load each “Plotagraph,” but I think it will be worth it once they do! 🙂
Daily Photo – Burning Heads
It’s that time of the season! Remember, this was made out of a single photo! 🙂
Thanks to the team at TV ONE and Mark Hathaway for converting this from a hit-piece to a puff-piece! 🙂
DAILY PHOTO – New Plotagraph
Here’s a Plotagraph I took from the quadcopter during the live filming of the show. It was nerve-wracking to be interviewed while trying to take photos and do so many things at once! 🙂
I made a much better version of the Plotagraph Tutorial. This one shows full end-to-end and has more samples. I also talk a bit about the price as well as how to share on various social media.
Daily Photo – The Dunedin Sunrise Plotagraph
Remember, this was made out of a single JPG – how cool! I made this animation be a bit faster than most to add to the drama. But, of course, you can choose whatever speed you like. Actually, this one has two different speeds for the sky and the water (the water is barely moving).
Whenever you take a photo of a symmetrical situation, be sure to spend a few extra moments to make sure you are absolutely in the very middle. If you’re using a mirrorless camera with an EVF, switch through to the different modes where you see the most gizmos on the screen. You can use all those horizon/tilt gizmos as triangulation bits to like up symmetrical objects in the room. Take a little extra time, because it’s really tough to fix symmetry in Photoshop!
Daily Photo – Crossing through Alexandra
I’ve made many road trips from Queenstown to Dunedin in the past year… every time I go through Alexandra. This is what it looks like as you cross the bridge in the middle of the Autumn. How pretty! 🙂
25 Presets. 2 Tutorial Videos. 20 Sample Images. Rather Redonkulously Long Preset Names that are More Problematic than Helpful.
Hello Internet friends. Trey Here. As of the time of writing this, Aurora HDR Pro has only been out less than half a year and already has 250,000+ downloads. It’s clear people love this! Well, I use this almost every day… sometimes to process dozens of photos. I honestly love it. Remember when I used to use Photomatix? Remember back in the 70’s when I used to stand up and walk over to the Magnavox to change the channel? Yeah, that was pretty lame.
In the past few months, I’ve created about 100 presets. I thought about releasing all of them, but that seemed to be too silly and information over-load, so I decided on my favorite 25. I actually had a little Google Doc, and whenever I used one, I updated the spreadsheet. Pretty geeky I know, but it helped figure out the best 25.
I’ll be honest. Every set of photos is different and some of these presets will make your photo look amazing, and others like complete garbage. There, I said it. But listen, I’m an expert in this stuff, and you just can’t have a preset that works perfectly in Daytime + Nighttime + Indoor/Outdoor + CutePet. So, some will look amazing, others not so much. But don’t give up, next time you might get the inverted results!
One of my favorite new presets is called “Girls Love them some Jon Snow.” It’s dark and moody and has just the right amount of HDR. It works great in night situations. Another great one that works with night shots is “Horrible Mistakes on Snapchat.”
Looking for a good daytime filter? This one really plays with the dynamic glow, but I keep going to it. It’s called “ROBOT TREY Calls This 101101101” which is really a stupid name but Robot Trey doesn’t think about these things. Another daytime winner is “Chocolate Increases Happiness & Shame.” You’ll notice how there are thematic connections between the presets that hint towards an artist in an endless downward shame spiral.
Have an interior shot? I’ve got this one that was a total accident that always seems to work. It’s called, “BB8 is Like Waaaay Cuter than R2-D2.” There’s another great one, even though the results come out a bit more grainy and dodgy called “Crisco Twister with Aunty”
Anyway, that’s just a taste. There’s other weird situations too. You might even try “LEVEL X – Don’t click this for 1 month,” but don’t try it for a month. It’s a test of your will. Perhaps you might click the more daring B&W preset gently entitled “I Hope My Daughter Never Comes Home with a Black & White Guy.” Actually, it turns out that preset name was too long, so it’s been shortened to “Who’s that Black & White Guy??”
And even better, I’m including 20 of my photos you can play with (6 sets of 3 JPGs and 1 RAW file) as well as 2 Tutorial Videos showing you how I use these 25 presets!
Want to see what the new Aurora HDR Pro is all about? Here’s a Deep Dive video that shows how fun and amazing the software is!
It’s really just incredible… I use it to make all my HDR images. It has layers, curves, special glows, and more! I think you’re gonna love it. Here it is in our store!
Wow that San Francisco Photowalk was amazing! Here’s our recapped video for you of all the highlights.
Daily Photo – Before the Aurora!
I know I keep talkin’ about the new Aurora HDR Pro, but I’m so darned excited about it! I was especially just thinking about it because of today’s photo from San Francisco. I processed this one with Photomatix, and I got that strange banding and chunky noise in the sky. I don’t have those problems with noise in Aurora HDR Pro because there are two ways to get rid of it, using HDR Denoise and a tricky Clarity slider
Grab the Pre-order for Aurora HDR Pro now! I’m so excited! This is the only software I use now for my photos that I edit on my Macs — it’s just incredible. It will be released in just 10 days, but you can grab get the pre-order package now.
Over the past year I’ve been slaving away on this with our partners at Skylum. You probably know many of the other Skylum products… I’ve been using their plugins for years and I think they are an amazing company. Well, about a year ago, we decided to combine forces to build the ultimate HDR Software.
Some of my favorite features of the new software
Not only are the HDR results simply amazing, but this tool is so jam-packed with features and bells and whistles that it’s all you need. Some of you that have been watching my other HDR Tutorials know how I used MANY tools including Lightroom, Photoshop, and other plugins. Well now I don’t use ANY of those —just this!
Aurora HDR Pro has LAYERS, HDR de-noise, that special “glow” effect you see in my photos sometimes that give them that fairy-tale look, curves, adjustments for the “HDRness” of the Top or Bottom of the photo, color filters, and, well, 100 other little things!
What’s going on with the Pre-order?
Many things! The actual release date is November 19th — but if you’re as excited as me and ready to get it now then you’ll get some special bonuses! The Pre-Order includes:
Aurora HDR Pro for Mac (Available for download Nov 19th)
20 minute Aurora HDR tutorial video by me
Bonus presets to get you started
11 HD wallpapers I made with Aurora HDR
11 sets of my bracketed images you can use for practice
Pre-Order Aurora HDR Pro for just $89! Includes exclusive bonuses! Offer ends November 18th
