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the katfarm
the katfarm
cgino


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Location: Polvadera, NM
Date: Dec 8, 2008
Date Uploaded: Dec 9, 2008

Viewed: 497
Comments: 18
Favorites: 1 (view)

 We call our place the katfarm since I have taken in so many cats...:-) You can see about half of them in this image. The weather finally took a turn yesterday, so I wanted to capture the ominous sky before I headed out to school in the evening. I guess winter finally has reached us in central New Mexico; we actually had a touch of snow this morning. YUK! I hate the cold.

This is a combination of several images; the house and ground is one that the RAW file was tonemapped in Photomatix, and the sky is a set of three RAW images combined and tonemapped in Photomatix. I started with the ground image then increased the canvas size to accommodate the sky HDR image and pasted it in. Since the ground and sky were taken about 10 minutes apart, I had to do some blending of the sky to make it match the bit of sky that was above the house in the base image; I used a layer mask to do this. After I got the sky blended, I created a duplicate copy, flattened it, then I did the following:
Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast
Color Efex Pro B&W conversion
Vignette created by painting black on new layer set to soft light mode
A bit of dodge and burn in sky
Attempt to remove the worst of the building distortion with distort and liquify
Levels adjustment to increase contrast in clouds even more, foreground masked out
Resize
Add border

Here are the originals:

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AuthorThread
 12/16/2008 11:56:29 AM
ROFL! I should read notes first! I thought somehow you got the white cat to stay in place while you took multiple exposures of the black one. I count 8. How many do you have??
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/12/2008 12:44:21 PM
I'm amazed at your processing skills - or should I say "skillz" - I think that's more "current", yes? I'd never know this is a composite. You really do have a way of "seeing" a photograph then creating it very well. It does seem that the cats all sense something ominous approaching and are getting the heck out of Dodge!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/12/2008 08:14:31 AM
Love the feel of this. So cinematic!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/12/2008 06:26:09 AM
It looks like a scene from a horror movie ..... all the cats are fleeing. Fantastic shot!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/12/2008 06:05:13 AM
This is really impressive. Bra-freaking-vo, auntie. :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/11/2008 01:05:55 PM
What a sky! You have mastered the art of combining photos. I would have never known without reading your comments.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/10/2008 09:15:55 PM
Fantastic choice of perspective. Love the B&W too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/10/2008 06:16:31 PM
Very very cool! I like that you took the initiative to combine 4 separate images. Your result is amazing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/10/2008 07:48:05 AM
Run away, kitties, run away! The ones in the back haven't seen the sky yet which is why they still have their tails up so confidently ;-)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/10/2008 04:53:21 AM
Fantastic! : )
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 11:17:40 PM
...all dark cats move to the left please...

This is great!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 10:08:26 PM
Nice work. I really like those shadowy cats.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 09:24:07 PM
Very dramatic, that sky, and with the cats running toward you it conveys an ominous sense.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 07:45:51 PM
From the thumbnail, I could not see the cats and I was like "What? No cats?" So I am relieved ;)

That being said, this is a wonderful HDR shot. All the cats seem to be running away from the storm. The whole shot has a feeling of something pending... Excellent!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 06:55:42 PM
This is amazing! Looks incredible
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 02:20:12 PM
Wow, what a menacing sky! Looks like the cats are running to take cover.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 12:25:36 PM
This is crazy good! The whole image has this forward motion - through the clouds and the cats running toward us. The light is ominous - and the sky is amazing. Wonderful work!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 12/09/2008 11:51:04 AM
Very cool perspective and the processing adds to the mood.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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