Perfect Layers

Heath OFee — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:45:33 +0000

Yesterday saw the official release of Perfect Layers from onOne Software. This is a pretty revolutionary plugin for Lightroom and Aperture that allows the use of layers within both of these programs. For those of you who don’t have Photoshop, prefer to do most of your work in Lightroom/Aperture, or just want a quick and easy way to add layers, you should definitely check out Perfect Layers. I haven’t used it a ton yet, but from my brief experience, it functions very well. Similar to Photoshop, multiple images can be stacked with different blend modes and opacities, and layer masks can be created to selectively mask two or more images together.

As an example of what is possible with Perfect Layers, I decided to try some manual exposure blending using two images at different exposure levels. Below are the two images I brought into Perfect Layers:

I stacked these two images with the overexposed shot on top, and set my blend mode to Normal. From there, I used a layer mask to selectively paint where I wanted the underexposed shot to show through. I varied the opacity of my brush through the frame to get the blend that I wanted. One of the great things about Perfect Layers is that it allows you to easily view your mask in different ways to see exactly where you’ve brushed in or out. Once I had the image where I wanted, I did a quick bit of styling in PhotoTools and I was done. Below is the final image:

I can see myself using Perfect Layers for quick exposure blending and layer masking. The ability to edit layers right in Lightroom is amazing, and I can’t wait to really put this plugin through its paces.

You can download a 30-day trial of Perfect Layers right now, or pick up the full version for the introductory price of $99.95 (a $30 savings). Give it a go…you won’t regret it.

Vegas City Centre

Heath OFee — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:55:59 +0000

This is another one of my favorites from our trip to Las Vegas last month. The new Vegas City Centre complex is very cool and I didn’t spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked to (although I have a feeling I would have been given a hard time trying to take photos there with my tripod without permission). This shot was taken from across the street on the busy corner just outside Planet Hollywood. As usual, it was a pretty busy night on the streets of Vegas and there were dozens of people on the corner waiting to cross the street while I was patiently setting up and taking this shot. Before I got there with my tripod nobody was taking the time to snap any photos of this scene…but after I got my gear all set up there were at least 3 or 4 others taking photos with their point-and-shoots of the same scene! Funny how people assume that if some random guy is taking a photo of something with a big tripod setup it must be a good photo opportunity…for all they know I could be the worst photographer in the world! Anyway…let me know what you think of this one:

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 15mm, F 7.1, ISO 100, 3 Exposures

The details: 3 exposure HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, Lightroom for color, contrast, clarity, spot removal, Photoshop for layer masking and a bit of smudging, Noiseware for noise control.

New – heath ofee dot com

Perfect Layers

Vegas City Centre