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About Andy

 

I am an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. My photographic safaris allow my travelers to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa ‘s beauty and culture.

Banana Republic recently used my photographs as the cornerstone of their Urban Safari campaign, and my images were seen in all 750 stores around the globe, as well as in their billboards, catalogs and annual report. I was also the winner of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the ‘Wild Places’ category in 2008 and a highly commended in the ‘Creative Visions of Nature’ category in 2007.

I launched Gura Gear in 2008, in an attempt to deliver lightweight camera bags to the market. I was looking for a lightweight camera bag to hold all of my photographic gear, and there was nothing desirable on the market that suited my needs. After spending 2 years with many prototypes, the Gura Gear Kiboko bag was born. More products are now available on the Gura Gear web site.

 

 

 

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Entries in HDR Efex Pro (1)

Wednesday
Oct202010

My favorite Photoshop Plugin: Nik Software's Viveza 2

I have been chugging along as a happy Adobe Lightroom guy for the past 4 years (since the beginning of the public beta program), and I really thought I had all of the control I needed within 1 application. Well, that changed a few months ago when I downloaded a demo of Nik Software’s Viveza 2 plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. I am not stupid when it comes to complex masking techniques in Photoshop, but I really don’t enjoy the process and I the process just takes too long.

I don’t want this to be a formal review of the product, but rather I would like to quickly illustrate what a before and after may look like with a few challenging images of mine from Botswana.

Image #1

Challenges: overall contrast, subject is too yellow, need subject to pop from background and surroundings

Solution: I added control points in all corners and darkened the corners, I cooled off the background to make the leopard have both a hue and luminance contrast when compared to background (leopard is warm and background is slightly cooler, and leopard is brighter than background), and I increased the contrast on the leopard. Oh, and I also slightly desaturated the leopard, because big cats tend to look too yellow / orange when the global saturation is increased in an image.

 

Before

 

After

 

Image #2

Challenges: Similar to the image above, I had issues with overall contrast, subject is too yellow, need subject to pop from background and surroundings

Solution: Similar to the image above, I added control points in all corners and darkened the corners, I cooled off the background to make the leopard have both a hue and luminance contrast when compared to background (leopard is warm and background is slightly cooler, and leopard is brighter than background), and I increased the contrast on the leopard. Oh, and I also slightly desaturated the leopard, because big cats tend to look too yellow / orange when the global saturation is increased in an image.

 

Before

 

After

 

I am now evaluating Nik’s newest offering: HDR Efex Pro. There are definitely circumstances where I can use such a tool, and based on my experience with Nik’s Viveza 2 I am certain that I am going to be happy with it. I am currently a user of Silver Efex Pro 2.0 for all of my black and white work, and I am finding new ways of working on my images right now. It’s a great feeling to see that I can get the quality that I need in a short amount of time, without all of the long steps of complex masks in Photoshop for each and every adjustment.