Thanks, will do. :)

I always manually focus with my 18-55mm lens, and while my photography isn't the sharpest I feel like for the lens I do okay. I also need to stop being lazy and break out the tripod. :p

Light Up Night was last night here in Da'Burgh. My daughter and I headed dawntawn N@ to take some pictures of the festivities.

http://users.zoominternet.net/~yuki/...ht%202015a.jpg

Post another - just for fun.

http://users.zoominternet.net/~yuki/...ht%202015b.jpg

Took this shot yesterday while doing a photoshoot:
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attach...8&d=1448859607

It is a 3 image stack composite. Nothing manipulated, simply stacked.

Fiery sunset
 

The evening sky on the water in Stuart FL, taken with an iPad mini.

That is quite the sun burst!

Sry, for some reason I can no longer see the pic I posted, so I am reposting it here:
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/665/2...6f033888_b.jpgBurger Stack (1) by Ricardo Vasquez, on Flickr

Those fries look tasty. :beer:

Took a shot of my puppy this morning...what a pain just getting her to sit and stay :hmm4:

http://users.zoominternet.net/~yuki//Yuki12.jpg

Beautiful pooch and nice background! TFS

Quick question, is your background layer, the one with a gradient come in from each corner on a separate layer or is it one whole layer? I only ask because I am not sure if the top left corner is a gradient coming in to the actual photo, or if the actual photo had a slight vignette there or if there was a darker element at the point in the frame.

So - I run these through CS6...once I get all my edits and watermark, here's what I do...

I first unlock the picture, then I stretch the canvas size - in my case, I use 105 and 108 percent.

I then use the magic wand to highlight the stretched canvas (just the area between the pic and the new edge), isolate the picture (ctrl-i), separate the background (ctrl-j) and paint the background white, which is the background color in my palet, and use ctrl-backspace to paint it all at once.

From there, i drop shadow and bezel the photo.

Now - for your specific question - I drop the curves on the entire picture to make it darker...which hits both the background and the photo itself. Then, I use the very wide paint brush on black to lighten an oval in the picture/background to give it that affect.

To me, it makes it look like a light is hitting the entire photo. Hope you like it :)

Joey those night shots rock. What camera is that? HDR? The sharpness, color and overall exposure are top notch.

Thanks for the explanation. I used to do something similar with my borders but after a while I got tired of doing it. So, I tried applying it as a rule through CS6 scripts I believe. It works so long as you keep the original aspect ratio, or you can account for it in specific profiles. Either way, after a while, I just stopped creating borders for one reason or another.
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5489/...b34fd79c_b.jpgEye in the Sky by Ricardo Vasquez, on Flickr
Notice how large the white border is. I wouldn't do that now, it just distracts so much from this particular picture. If I could do it again I would slim down the border and keep everything else the same.

Thanks - I have 2 camera's that I use...one's a Nikon D90, the other is a Nikon D7100. I know...essentially they are the same camera, but it makes it easier for taking multiple lenses with me. Also, my daughter's been going a bit, so she's been using the new one.

While I've done it plenty in the past, neither of these are HDR...just long exposure. I appreciate the comments :)

No problem.

I tossed mine in a script - but not all aspects of it works through it...some of it I still need to do manually. I'll roll with this for a while, but will probably change to something else once I get bored with it (much like my watermark).

Lots of great shots here! I thought I might start contributing as well.

http://i831.photobucket.com/albums/z...n.jpg~original

Made my first attempt at astro last night around 9:00PM Eldorado Canyon Colorado.

http://i831.photobucket.com/albums/z...k.jpg~original

Wow,, nice view

You did very well!!!

Thanks good to see this thread is still alive. Heres to keeping this thread going.

http://i831.photobucket.com/albums/z...6.jpg~original

It was a big day! I popped the question and she said Yes!
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1635/...1c786307_b.jpg
Day 14: Proposal by gupouk, on Flickr

Nice! congrats, thats a good looking ring!

Thanks! It took quite some time to find, but she loves it!

Did some juicing today!
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1645/...650cf7dc_b.jpg
Day 22: Progress in the Name of by gupouk, on Flickr