Lightroom Presets.

Posted on November 7, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

Hello,

I have just been working on some photographs of some flowers that I made a few weeks ago. Most of the photographs that I took were of a single red Gerbera flower from many different angles in natural light. I have the habit of taking lots of photographs with only very slight changes before moving onto bigger changes, and many of these photographs were looking a little too alike so I played with some of the Lightroom presets to get more different effects. I was quite pleased with these effects – the ones that I was most pleased with can be found at:-

https://500px.com/paulcullenphotography/sets/flowers

Here are some examples of the effects achieved:-

Original colours.

Selenium Tone

Original file.

Red Hi-Contrast – one of the monochrome presets.

Now that you have an idea of the original colour scheme, I’ll just put in the adjustment/preset/changes used.

Cyanotype.

Black and white look 3.

Yellow filter – the effect that you would have had putting a yellow filter over a monochrome film

Cross process 3 – each of the cross process presets gives a different effect.

“Aged photo” preset.

No preset – only adjustment of Clarity and Vibrance -green background.

Cold tone – Red on Green background.

Split tone 2 – there are three native split tones. (On a green background)

Bleach Bypass (Red on a green background).

So there you are, 11 (13 if you count the reference images that I have put in at the beginning) different effects that you can achieve on similar images to make them stand out. There are many more, so I hope that I have given you the incentive to experiment with your own images to produce something vibrant.

The presets, found on the left hand side in “Develop mode” really just alter the adjustment controls on the Right hand side. You can broaden your scope even further with third party presets that you can buy or even get for free; alternatively, you could experiment with the right hand controls to create your own effects. Lightroom has the ability to save these “home grown” presets.

Haven’t got Lightroom? Don’t worry, other photo editing suites like Coral Paint Shop Pro and OnOne Perfect Photo Suite also have built in presets.

Latest Upload to the Stock Libraries.

Posted on August 21, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

I thought that my old coin collection may be of some interest to people from an educational point of view. I think that they could be of use for those completing History projects or other numismatic endeavors (That’s the study of coins – I had to look it up) so I decided to post some of them to the Microstock libraries. They have been accepted by Veer and I am still waiting to hear from Bigstock and Shutterstock. Here are photographs of some of the (I think) more interesting ones:-

Commemorative coin celebrating 50 years since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Face side.

Commemorative coin celebrating 50 years since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Reverse side.

American Dime 1929

fifty German pfennig 1940

Five Pfennig 1925

Queens Silver Jubilee 1977

Royal Engagement.

500px

Posted on August 21, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

Just joined 500px (500 pixels) here is my profile address:-

http://500px.com/paulcullenphotography

Trash the Dress shoot.

Posted on August 3, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

I was invited to attend a “Trash the Dress” photo-shoot by a professional photographer called Bob Richards. He is a good friend of a good friend of mine, and now he is my friend – I digress!

The “Trash the Dress” event was created by photographers and their wedding clients who wanted to do something different with their wedding dresses than put it away in a box for ever. The concept of trash the dress is that you take your now redundant wedding dress and literally trash it; destroy it by going to somewhere really mucky – Beach, industrial wasteland, lake, muddy field, Scrap/junk yard – and you take photographs of the event happening – for posterity! At Bob’s event, he gathered together Models, Make-up artists and Photographer friends to take photographs and have fun at the same time. The venue was Colwick Country Park which is just to the east of the U.K. city of Nottingham. It is a beautiful place and it has a large lake in the middle of it. It also has a disused church at one end which came in useful for alternative shots. Here are just a few of the photographs that I took – more can be found by doing a search for “Paul Cullen Photography” in Facebook or searching “paul2210” in Flickr:-

Wendy Noble.

MonikaV

Stephi

Diane

Wendy.

The Lady of the Lake.

Nicky.

Stock Photography.

Posted on July 4, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

I have just passed Quality Control for Alamy and can now post stock photography. I’ll have to start to produce some more now – I have got lots of ideas ( and quite a few photos in my archives that might sell!). Here are the photos that I sent for QC; they are an indication of some the sort of markets that I’ll be targeting, but not all. They are a start:-

$Ilfracombe Harbour.$

Competition Entry.

Posted on July 4, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

I was invited to enter a competition recently through the Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers (SINWP). Here is my entry – it looks like I am up against stiff competition – All Entries

As seen in Attenborough Nature Reserve.

Portraits.

Posted on June 27, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

I have lot of photographs in storage and occasionally I will look at them and I get inspiration to do something different with them in an effort to expand my Photoshop skills. The following photographs were created on such an occasion. This is my friend Emma. She invited me to take photographs of her and her lovely family over a year ago. Recently, I revisited those photographs and these are some of the results:-

I changed the colour balance and added some diffuse glow.

All comments welcome; I am trying to create photographs that people will like and I am pleased with these, but I would really like to know if I was barking up the wrong tree.

Safe House Aerial performance -NNF 14

Posted on May 25, 2014 by paulcullenphotography

What a fine end to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. Safe House, an aerial performance about the importance of home and family stability marked the end of the festival with a dazzling aerial display. I was fortunate to witness their final rehearsal on Friday 23rd of May, courtesy of WEX Photographic through their “Low light workshop”. I was one of twelve contest winners who had the exclusive opportunity to photograph the artistes going through their routine one last time before the big night. The workshop was lead by internationally renowned fashion and music photographer Paul Bayfield (The Timesniper). He was ably assisted by Ben, Emma and Josh from WEX. Big thanks go to Paul Bayfield, Ben, Emma and Josh and all from WEX, and to the performers from the production “Safe House” who allowed us to photograph them.

The workshop and subsequent live performance took place on St. James’ Court, just behind the Puppet Theatre on Whitefriars, Norwich.

Here are some of my photographs taken at the event:-

The finale to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2014 was a performance of Safe House.

The Safe House production was performed by Metro-Boulot-Dodo which means live to work, although in French this can be taken several ways ( nothing but work, or work, work, work, or perhaps live to work – like you enjoy your work)