Darvin Atkeson
Liquid Gold Sunset - Pescadero State Beach California
Best Viewed On Black | My Photostream on Black | Desktop Background
Traveling south along the Kings Highway also known as Highway One, you
encounter several large sandy beaches with rocks on either side. One such
beach is Pescadero State Beach about halfway between San Francisco and Santa
Cruz on the San Mateo coast. It may seem odd for most people to see a
lone photographer wading out in the surf taking pictures on a gloomy and
cloudy day but I find that stormy skies make for interesting beach
photography. Granted when I get back to the car I have to pull off my wet
New Balance sneakers and then peel the saltwater soaked socks off my feet
and try and get the sand from between my toes. It's a pain but it's all
worth it to me in the end.
Once home I will download the images to my system. My Nikon D300 has
several options and I find that on cloudy days setting it to Vibrant Mode
helps to improve the color saturation in the image. This setting effects
the JPEG files but not the NEF files. In some cases the JPEG file can be
posted directly but often I prefer to work on the raw data. So I take the
camera's raw NEF files in to Adobe Camera Raw to adjust the exposure,
vibrancy and saturation and most importantly correct the level of the shot.
Nothing bugs me more than to see a photo on Flickr of the ocean and the
horizon looks like it's out of the old Batman TV series. Typically this
isn't a big adjustment on my shot because I always use a tripod and try to
keep it as level as possible. I will go through all the images in the set
to find which image really looks the best. I will evaluate each image
considering the clouds, waves, foam and sand till I narrow it down to the
images I like best. Once one is picked I then open the image in Photoshop
and adjust the Levels setting, run a pass to reduce noise and adjust the
sharpness as needed. On average I don't spend more than about 10 to 15
minutes on any given image unless there is a problem such as an object in
the image I want to remove. When shooting state beaches I find I often
have to either pick up trash when possible or edit it out when I get home.
Fortunately I didn't have to do this on this image.
Once happy with the image I still have to prepare it for the web. I save
it off as a JPEG with highest quality. I then resize the image for Flickr.
Typically I want to offer all my images as desktop wallpaper sizes so people
can enjoy them for free on their system. I add my websites watermark and
save the image off to the Flickr folder on my system. If I have several
images in a set I try to upload them over time since many groups limit the
number of uploads. This also gives the first page of my PhotoStream a nice
variety instead of a bunch of shots from the same place. If you are
interested in using any of my images for your systems desktop wallpaper,
just click on the All Sizes > Original Size to view the approximately 1920 x
1200 size image. Once it loads, just right click on it and choose Set As
Desktop Background in your browser or save the image to your wallpaper
folder. Oh, and if you enjoy the image, take a sec and let me know. If
you need a different size, just drop me a note as to your screen resolution.
Regards,
Darv
© Darvin Atkeson
Liquid Gold Sunset - Pescadero State Beach California
Best Viewed On Black | My Photostream on Black | Desktop Background
Traveling south along the Kings Highway also known as Highway One, you
encounter several large sandy beaches with rocks on either side. One such
beach is Pescadero State Beach about halfway between San Francisco and Santa
Cruz on the San Mateo coast. It may seem odd for most people to see a
lone photographer wading out in the surf taking pictures on a gloomy and
cloudy day but I find that stormy skies make for interesting beach
photography. Granted when I get back to the car I have to pull off my wet
New Balance sneakers and then peel the saltwater soaked socks off my feet
and try and get the sand from between my toes. It's a pain but it's all
worth it to me in the end.
Once home I will download the images to my system. My Nikon D300 has
several options and I find that on cloudy days setting it to Vibrant Mode
helps to improve the color saturation in the image. This setting effects
the JPEG files but not the NEF files. In some cases the JPEG file can be
posted directly but often I prefer to work on the raw data. So I take the
camera's raw NEF files in to Adobe Camera Raw to adjust the exposure,
vibrancy and saturation and most importantly correct the level of the shot.
Nothing bugs me more than to see a photo on Flickr of the ocean and the
horizon looks like it's out of the old Batman TV series. Typically this
isn't a big adjustment on my shot because I always use a tripod and try to
keep it as level as possible. I will go through all the images in the set
to find which image really looks the best. I will evaluate each image
considering the clouds, waves, foam and sand till I narrow it down to the
images I like best. Once one is picked I then open the image in Photoshop
and adjust the Levels setting, run a pass to reduce noise and adjust the
sharpness as needed. On average I don't spend more than about 10 to 15
minutes on any given image unless there is a problem such as an object in
the image I want to remove. When shooting state beaches I find I often
have to either pick up trash when possible or edit it out when I get home.
Fortunately I didn't have to do this on this image.
Once happy with the image I still have to prepare it for the web. I save
it off as a JPEG with highest quality. I then resize the image for Flickr.
Typically I want to offer all my images as desktop wallpaper sizes so people
can enjoy them for free on their system. I add my websites watermark and
save the image off to the Flickr folder on my system. If I have several
images in a set I try to upload them over time since many groups limit the
number of uploads. This also gives the first page of my PhotoStream a nice
variety instead of a bunch of shots from the same place. If you are
interested in using any of my images for your systems desktop wallpaper,
just click on the All Sizes > Original Size to view the approximately 1920 x
1200 size image. Once it loads, just right click on it and choose Set As
Desktop Background in your browser or save the image to your wallpaper
folder. Oh, and if you enjoy the image, take a sec and let me know. If
you need a different size, just drop me a note as to your screen resolution.
Regards,
Darv
© Darvin Atkeson