The Look, Dad, The Yawn

An experiment in high-key cross processing.
Pictured on Patrick Street, Cork.

Howto and what is cross processing?
Cross-processing has been around for as long as film has, and is a way of making your images more interesting and abstract by literally mixing colours. I followed the simple instructions here which I had blogged a long time ago but forgot! It came up in a search for “cross processing gimp”!

There’s no magic secret way of doing this. Simply open your image in your favourite image manipulation program, GIMP of course, or Photoshop if you must. Bring up the Curves tool, and play the Red, Green and Blue channels separately until you have something you like! Create S curves to increase the contrast of each colour, and make it pronounced to increase the effect!
Use the saturation tool to make the colours even more pronounced and remember, have fun!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/640s

Sunlit Web

On a foggy morning a web will sparkle in the ambient light because of the moisture in the air.
I spent an inordinate amount of time crouched down shooting this dead bush!

Coats and Hat

It’s unusual to see a man wearing a hat like the one above these days. I made this photo on Patrick Street a few weeks ago and love the different textures and the faces!

English Market Seller

There’s a wonderful looking olive and spice stall in the English Market!
Unfortunately it is always mobbed with customers making it difficult to capture a photo of it but I raised my camera into the air and shot this blind.
The original is quite grainy as I used a high ISO of 3200 to compensate for the bad light.
Workflow:

  • Increased the saturation slightly.
  • Unsharp mask with a radius of 5 to bring out the grain more.
  • Duplicate layer and used the Threshold tool to isolate bright parts.
  • Blur the top layer with a radius of 25 pixels.
  • Set the top layer mode to “Soft Light”.
  • Saved a .xcf version, .jpg and a resized jpeg too. I didn’t unsharp mask the resized version.

Hope you find that useful!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 3200
Shutter speed 1/320s

Scapa Flo, Blackpool Shopping Center

Scapa Flo played for free in aid of the Belarussian Orphanage Project. Pictured here are 3 of the band members.

Wet Day Shopping

Couple walking along Patricks Street Cork on Saturday.

De Barra’s masks

De Barra’s Pub in Clonakilty is a lovely atmospheric pub we visited a few weeks ago. Tucked into a corner, we ate our soup and relaxed as the cold rain and wind blew outside!
There’s lots of stuff hanging on the walls, and this is only a small flavour of the rich decoration.


Apertureƒ/5.6
CameraCanon EOS 20D
Focal length28mm
ISO1600
Shutter speed1/60s