Hello Again!

Hello! Decided to come back to this blog. I've been meaning to do so for a long time, but haven't been taking the quality of photos I wanted to be taking with my new Nikon D5100. So bear with me til I get used to the camera!
Here are three edits of a sunset I wanted to play with using an HDR editor. Since I used some local toning in the processing of the source photos, I'm sure that's why the end result wasn't quite what it should be.
Either way, what do you think?

~Knight

Trees

I really like trees. XD And sunsets combined with trees are even better!

These first two are similar to my last entry's "Twin Shadows" photo, but I call them "Look Into The Heavens" and "Twins Aglow", respectively.

Please view in full-size!

 These two are pretty cool and vivid. The one on the left could maybe make a good text border.

Same tree as the last two shots, yet different. Quite plain.

Two AWESOME silhouettes! My favorite photos in this entire entry.

 Decided to have some fun, lol. The top one is the original color.

 Same place, slightly different shots. Kind of randomly done and not very spectacular.

I hope you liked these photos! Which are your favorites? Why?

Gotta Love Sunsets

Sunsets are my favorite type of pictures! The lighting is just so warm and awesome. XD They are also not all that hard to take, if you time it right and your camera is halfway decent.

Isn't it interesting that when you look at a nice scene, your eyes are actually being selective? It is a good scene, but often it has objects in it that aren't as pretty - but your mind just ignores them and sees the beauty of it.

Not so with pictures. It is much easier to see the things that don't belong. :-/

Please click to view full size! :-D I love the grass in the foreground.

Now to the beach! Again, please view full size!(ignore the ppl in it :-P)

My sister and a friend of hers. These silhouette pics didn't turn out quite like we wanted, but oh well. *shrug*

So what do you think? What are your favorites? Why?

HDRs and a Tutorial

HDRs! For those new to the concept HDR means High Dynamic Range, which in my mind is a good definition as your main objective is to get a large range of exposures for a scene and put them together to get the best of each one.

This can be accomplished with only a few photos, and here's an example from my PSPX4 program:

Recently, I've been trying my hand at making these things, with a little success, but I know I can probably do better.

Here's my 2nd HDR of some clouds (my first stunk too bad, lol).

I rather like it, actually.

And now for my best one so far (at least in my DeviantART watcher's opinion, as I have more favorites on this thing than any of my other photos EVER).
The downsides are that the color is kind of unnatural, and it could have gone more sunset style than I did, but oh well.
Also, I kinda made this a tutorial, but as I'm no pro it's really just showing what I did. Please click it for Full View or view it on deviantart HERE.

After the processing I actually went and did more contrast and noise removal, as well as a few other minor things I don't remember. XD

I hope you like it!

P.S. These are all edits of the same image to resemble actual seperate exposures on only a slight scale. I haven't gotten the hang of actually taking a bunch of shots with a tripod. It would be too slow with my camera for a sunset.

Clouds

I decided to do multiple edits of some clouds (influence: Amy's edits). I don't like things as edited as she does, but I need to practice going-out-of-the-box with my edits....and it's really hard for me, lol. I'll see what I can do with some of the river pics I have.

Near-original (slight contrast and noise removal)

Temperature drop (not far. With noise-removal)

High-contrast (with noise-removal)

Temperature raised to the high mid-range (also used noise-removal)

SUPER contrast with earth tone filter and a tiny amount of noise removal

Overall scene (contrast, saturation, noise removal)

You can tell I like noise removal, though sometimes it doesn't do much.

Icons

A few days ago I created some icons for a photography group on deviantART called "ThatPerfectMoment".
At first I used some cat pictures and added the group's name on it (which can be seen Here), but decided it was probably better to create blank icons that text can be added to later on.
Here are some of the one's I made, of course they look better small:

 

The purple flower on the left could have probably used better focus, lol.

<                                    ^
Both of these shots are very nice in my opinion. I hope to add the full-size pictures very soon. :-D

If you've been following this blog for some time, then you've already seen the originals of these beach pictures.

California Hills

I really want to move to more posts, less per post, but it's tough! Anyway, here's a shot I took from our vehicle of the hills around our area (while they are actually green, normally they are brown). You can also find this here: http://oneofakindknight.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4dhjq9

Click for full size, but it isn't the best quality in the world.

River 'n' Surfin'

Contrary to what the title may suggest, I have no picture of someone surfing on a river, lol. Just an ocean surfer and some more river pics. ;-D Enjoy!

The logo on this one above is weird, but I like the focus of the splash and the green. :-)

I like rapids! Too bad I didn't get some close up ones (would have if I had a waterproof camera).

It was fun standing in the river. This one didn't focus quite right.

I love the color in this shot! and the bubbly water.

I still have more river pictures coming, so stay tuned, and please comment! :-D

Beaches: in day and dusk

Beaches! Beaches are so nice and varied, you can get all sorts of shots when your there - depending on the time of day. Here are some pictures I've been wanting to share here for awhile, though they aren't exactly new because I don't get down there on a good day often. Enjoy and please comment!

 

I like this one a lot! :-D

Sky and a little Sand

Hey all, decided to post some sky pics! They aren't the best though so I'd be glad of your opinions. ;-D Btw, I may not be around for a little while, so if you don't see a post in 5-7 days I went someplace (and hopefully is taking pictures). Enjoy and have a good week!

 

This one's my fav ^

Next time I'll be having some beach pictures, so here's a taste! lol :-D