Ducks on the pond
Six summers ago, this happened…
Ashland Daily Photo - A picture a day from beautiful Ashland, Southern Oregon USA in the Rogue Valley
| The above will search Ashland Daily Photo. |
Posts tagged mount mcloughlin
Warmer days
Lake of the Woods (Oregon)
Today’s random, desktop image comes from three and a half years ago.
Ice Walker
Last week I posted a photo from the edge of Lake of the Woods. This was from a walk I took last weekend in snow shoes.
Today’s photo is from the middle of the lake after I ventured out past the shadows. In the shadows there was snow on the ice, and things felt more solid. I probably could have kept going straight across to my car near the lodge in the distance, but as the ice became more transparent I figured my adrenaline levels were high enough so I turned back at this point and walked around instead.
Frozen Lake of the Woods
Lake of the Woods with Mount McLoughlin in the background in winter
Mt. McLoughlin from Medford
Mount McLoughlin from Roxy Ann Peak trail
Aerial view of Pilot Rock and Mount McLoughlin (obscured by clouds)
Pilot Rock from the vantage point of the pilot
Keeping it all in focus
Focus stacked Mount McLoughlin and wildflowers from Lower Table Rock
I tried another focus stack from a couple of photos I took this past weekend on Lower Table Rock. The results are better than my first attempt on Upper Table Rock earlier this year.
Upper Table Rock from Lower Table Rock
Upper Table Rock and Mt. McLoughlin
We took a little hike for Mother’s Day yesterday. While I’ve done the Upper Table Rock hike a half dozen times or so over the 14 years I’ve lived in the Rogue Valley, this was my first time going up Lower Table Rock.
My first (not entirely successful) focus stack
This past weekend I was hiking on Upper Table Rock. The ground was covered with wildflowers and snow-covered Mt. McLoughlin looked splendid in the distance. So I took this photo of the wildflowers.
foreground focus
But I wanted a photo with Mount McLoughlin in focus so I took another one.
distant focus
When I got home I was a bit disappointed in each photo.
My photography and Photoshop skills are completely self taught. I have never taken a class, had a tutor/mentor, or even read a book on either subject. I’ve learned merely by trial and error with my camera and trying different things in Photoshop.
So what I wanted to do was combine the above two photos. I did so by using Photomerge (under File/Automate) in Photoshop and unchecking the “Blend Images Together” option. Hit F7 to see the layers if your layers box isn’t already open. Select both images, and use Auto-Blend Layers (under Edit) to stack the images. The result is below.
Photomerged focus stack
It’s not perfect, but now I have a new option at my fingertips in the future. Two things I need to do differently:
1) Take more than two photos. Notice how the finished result is out of focus in the middle. Had I taken three or four photos, each with a different focus point, the entire stacked photo could have been in focus.
2) Maintain the same, or nearly the same, composition (and camera settings–shutter speed, ISO, aperture). I recomposed the scene a bit after taking the first image which doesn’t make for the best stacking conditions later in post.
A more recent focus stack of a similar scene can now be found here.
View of Mount McLoughlin from High Lakes Trail
Mount McLoughlin with lava rocks in foreground
Yesterday was the first warm day we have had in months, and it almost felt like the day when I took this photo (my random, desktop photo of the day) back in the summer of 2011. I went on a bike ride and saw just a touch of snow on Mt. Ashland, extremely rare for this time of year. I’m guessing there isn’t much on Mount McLoughlin either given the nearly snowless winter we are experiencing.
Copyright © 2024 Ashland Daily Photo - All Rights Reserved
|
Photos processed with Topaz DeNoise |
