Mattress Store's in Sheboygan County, WI

Here are some great Mattress and Furniture Stores in the Sheboygan County, WI area. Plymouth Furniture's blog has some great information and mattress information. Click here for Clearance Furniture. Visit Plymouth Furniture & Mattress to shop for mattresses online.

A few other websites for mattresses in the Sheboygan County area are Sheboygan Mattress and Elkhart Lake Furniture & Mattress.

Cool Photo Blog

Check out this cool photography blog. They have tips and and recommendations.

The Photography Connection

Find photo printing tricks, tips and other fun information in the realm of pictures.

Great Wisconsin Furniture Store Websites.

Find great deals at Plymouth Furniture Clearance.

Visit Wisconsin Furniture Design to get great furniture design ideas for homes in Wisconsin.

Find great furniture at Plymouth Furniture and Bedding Showrooms.

Great Attorney in Appleton, WI

Do you need a Wisconsin Lawyer?
For a lawyer in Appleton WI visit AppletonJustice.Com

For information related to the law visit this law blog.

Kaehne Law Group's facebook fan page.

Appleton Attorney - Kaehne Law Group's website.

Photoshop CS3 Interface video

Dynamic Paintings on Canvas - Fine Art Giclee Reproductions on Canvas

Digital Photos on Everything

We have added what we imaging will be our fifth and final website in the family of Digital Photos on Canvas, LLC. Over the last couple of years we have had requests for other products we have found a way to offer many other photography options for people. Check out Digital Photos on Everything for all the other niche photo products that you have been looking for. There are photo calendars, blankets, stickers, and many more.
Check out all five of our websites:
Digital Photos on Everything
Digital Photos on Canvas
Digital Photos on Canvas Express
Dynamic Paintings on Canvas
DP Canvas

Thanks,
Mike

Art Reproductions on Canvas

Yippieee! We just launched a new website for people to purchase fine art reproductions on canvas. There are many artists to choose from and more added daily. The name is Dynamic Paintings on Canvas - check it out. Choose from Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and even many up and coming artists.
We are also looking for artists - contact Dynamic Paintings on Canvas for more information. We now have a total of four websites all related to printing on canvas:
Digital Photos on Canvas
Digital Photos on Canvas Express
Dynamic Paintings on Canvas
DP Canvas

Thanks,
Mike

Amazing deal for October and November

Recently Jess Riley released her amazing novel Driving Sideways. Everyone at Digital Photos on Canvas read the book and loved it. For the months of October and November enter the promotional code SIDEWAYS to receive a free copy of the novel Driving Sideways and also receive an additional $10 off your photo canvas order.
Oh, and that's not all we have teamed with the author and Jess Riley will personalize the book for you. In the special instructions while checking out enter what you would like your personalized book to say.
If you don't want a canvas we encourage you to order your copy from Amazon.com - also visit Jess Riley's website at http://www.jessriley.com/
To place your order visit http://www.digitalphotosoncanvas.com/create_photo_canvas.php

Thanks,
Mike

promotional code: SIDEWAYS

Photography Tips

Photography tips, YouTube video.







Digital Photos on Canvas

Snow Picture Taking

First things first, if you plan to take spectacular winter landscape photographs, you will need to get yourself ready for the cold. As with dressing for any other winter outing, it is best to put on layers, as opposed to one bulky piece of clothing. You can always take off layers if the weather changes.

Wear appropriate winter walking shoes, ones that will grip the snow and ice and not slide on it. We do not want you dancing on ice, sliding and slipping. You may not only fall, damage your camera but also become a suitable object for other photo enthusiasts out there. So lets get some good winter boots.

Other things that you need are warm hat and a pair of thin, warm gloves. It is so much easier to take pictures wearing a slim glove and not the fat, bulky one. If you wear thick gloves, it may be nearly impossible to operate your camera, especially if it is a manual focus one. You may need to take the gloves off, exposing your hands to the cold, winter air. Your hands will quickly become cold and stiff and the photo session will be over...

Since you are ready, now we have to take a look at your camera. First thing that will happen when you step outside, will be a fog on your lens. To overcome this, simply wait couple of minutes and let the optics adjust to the temperature. The fog will disappear with time. Please be patient and do not try to wipe it off. You may not only damage the lens, but also smudge it, so when it does adjust to the cold, the smudge will dry up and be impossible to remove on the spot.

Make sure that your camera is protected from snow and water. If the snowflake lands on your lens it will melt and smudges will form, just like described above. So keep your equipment well protected and covered, if it is snowing outside.

Winter photography requires an equipment that will stand up to freezing temperatures. The film cameras or SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras are better choice for outdoor, winter photography, because they have a much sturdier parts. The Digital Cameras may fail you in very cold conditions. You may avoid this by keeping the batteries warm or changing them for fresh, warm ones if needed. You can warm up the batteries by holding them in your hand, or in the car.

The winter landscape, beautiful as it may be, is quite tricky. It is just like shooting the high-key studio portrait. Majority of the landscape is white, the background and foreground are bright and the camers's exposure meter will tend to give you the wrong reading, resulting in underexposed shot. In order to avoid this problem it is a good idea to switch to the manual program and take the picture by overexposing it by one stop.

Sometimes the winter will serve up some gray skies and you may think that your pictures will look equally gray and sad. That may not be the case; you have several options in this case. The first would be to use the gray sky to your advantage, that moody color may add more character to your image. You will have a grater opportunity to showcase the full spectrum of the gray scale, visible in the winter sky. When you are finally tired of the gray, try to shoot from such an angle that the sky area is not as visible. Another option is to use a gradual coloring filter to visually change the sky color.

Besides shooting the grey sky, you may consider other choices for your winter photography project.

If you have a dog, take it with you on your shooting trip. It may surprise you how playful dogs can be in the powdery snow. The picture of the friendly dogs face covered with the white fluffy stuff will make your heart melt.

If you lucky enough to be by the water somewhere, make sure to take some shots of the frozen surfaces if it is a lake or maybe the spectacular frozen river scene with just a trickle of water coming through onto the cascading stones.

The country scene with a crooked, old barn surrounded by sparkly branches of low growing bushes covered with ice. Make sure that your scene composition is done in your viewfinder, so it is balanced and perfect, not on your computer.

With Digital cameras, and the flexibility of processing that they offer, you have the greater ability to choose the finished format of your photograph. The winter scenery may work well in the wide landscape format.

Other options for outdoor winter photography may include horses in the pasture, colorful birds at the feeder, wild animals in the forest.

Your children will provide the endless array of images that you can work with. Just remember to dress them in layers and let them have fun. Make sure to get down to their level, and get in close. If you are afraid to spoil their fun, or you know that they will be camera shy, step back, use a telephoto lens and a tripod for stability. The final results will be well worth the hassle.

If you are lost for choices in winter photography themes, you can always try the close-up shots. The beauty of the frozen patch of grass, sparkling in the sun on the background of glistening snow, may be discovered only through the viewfinder of your camera.

George

Night Photography

Photography at night can be used to create amazing pictures. For this kind of photography a tripod is almost a must. If you want to get a clear exposure with a great depth-of-field, then you will need a tripod. Usually when we take pictures of sunsets or bright lights we just center all the coloring and shoot the picture.

But something that you should think about doing is adding some foreground item to frame and then shooting which will create a greater depth to the picture, and most of the time make the results look even more brilliant. Set the aperture was very narrow (high f/stop), and a slow shutter speed. Even though you use a tripod, the self-timer should also be used, to eliminate any shake.


When photographing sunsets you should not only include foreground items but use the rule of thirds, specifically the horizontal section of thirds so you get a good perspective on the scene. The sunset picture right here was split up into about 2/3's foreground and 1/3 horizon, but this same picture would probably still look good with 1/3 foreground and 2/3's horizon. Also, when you take the light reading with your camera make sure you don't point it directly at the sun, if you do your picture will be underexposed. Take the light reading from the coloring around the sun so you get an exposure that is ideal to accent all the colors.

When trying to photograph fireworks or lightning you will definitely need a tripod. There are different techniques to doing this but probably the easiest is just setting your camera up pointed at a good range of sky and setting the aperture narrow (high f/stop) and setting the shutter speed very long or just by using the "bulb" function of shutter speed (the "bulb" function allows you to open the shudder and close it manually, so its not on a set time). Many people try this in different ways so its just good to experiment and try different things.

George

Software Recommendations

There are a few tools in my arsenal that I use weekly if not daily. The first and most important is of course Adobe Photoshop CS3. Photoshop is the foundation of everything I do to images. I use it to crop, color correct, edit, enhance, and much more. The next most used software is Corel Painter. I use Corel Painter to make that painterly effect to my images. I usually will enhance in Photoshop then bring into Painter. Those are the big two I use.
Besides the big two there various plug ins that I find useful. Photoshop has a lot of functionality and built in filters but even with the massive range you have with Photoshop there are various plug ins that can enhance a good image to make it great. The first is nik color efex. This is photographic filters for photoshop. The great thing about these filters is you have so much control as to how powerful the filter is.
There are many other plug ins that I do not use but have many friends who highly recommend them. The first is Lucis Art or Lucis Pro 6.0. Below is what Lucis has to say about their software:

Lucis^® Image Processing Software, an easy, fundamentally new way to view image content

Images often contain hundreds to tens of thousands of contrast levels. Our eyes can only differentiate 32 levels of contrast. Therefore fine contrast variations are only partially recognized as textures our eyes can't resolve.

Lucis^® makes visible the fine contrast variations (details) you would like to see.

Using two cursors (sliders) in Preview Mode, select the range of contrast variances to view. Lucis compares each pixel to every other pixel along hundreds of radial lines in two directions to map out contrast variances. Contrast variances within the selected range are enhanced and contrast variances outside the range are diminished. The relative emphasis of contrast information is shifted, but information is not thrown away. Lucis reveals detail that other image-processing methods can’t.

Lucis reveals detail throughout the image, in both the bright and dark areas.

Dinoflagellate images courtesy of Prof. Brian Matsumoto, U. of Southern California, Santa Barbara, CA. The single-luminance-channel Lucis image most clearly defines the transparent reticulum of the cell and reveals details within the dark central mass of the chloroplasts. Lucis most fully reveals the full extent of the central fissure that divides the mass into two halves and shows details, such as varicosities, within the transparent strands.

Lucis processing only effects the intensity information in an image. To process a color image, Lucis converts the RGB (Red Green Blue) information to HSL (Hue Saturation Luminance). Lucis processes the Luminance information, and then combines the new Luminance (L') with the unaltered Hue and Saturation. The HSL' information is converted to RGB. Color images will experience color shifts as Lucis extracts the image detail.

Lucis 4.2.1 processes color images as single luminance channel images.

Lucis Pro 5.0 allows the user to process each RGB channel separately with differing Lucis processing parameters, so the details in each color can be seen as clearly as possible. This is essential for applications like Fluorescence Microscopy.

Fluorescence Microscopy Images

Obelia image courtesy of Prof. Brian Matsumoto.	Lucis Pro 5.0 image

The next plugin software is from Alien Skin. They offer numerous products the most talked about being Blow Up (which is similar to Genuine Fractals) and Snap Art.

-Mike

Digital Photos on Canvas
Digital Photos on Canvas Express

Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Make a color image partially Black and White

How I Did That - Inner Essence

This was done with a strobe, Tri-X 400 35mm Kodak Black and White film, and printed on Ilford fiber paper. I started with a slow shutter speed and hit the shutter when I was zoomed in and quickly zoomed out. The strobe went off right away and that is why the one eye is extremely sharp and the rest is out of focus. After printed I toned the print with a selenium toner which really seperated the tones.

Cheers,
Mike

www.Digital PhotosOnCanvas.com
www.DigitalPhotosOnCanvasExpress.com

Alternative Health Site

I just wanted to tell everyone about a cool website if you are into natural health. It is Perfect Circle Remedies. It is a website not devoted to one area of alternative health but is a site to find information to many different areas of natural health. I know this isn't photo related but I am interested in being healthy. Visit www.perfectcircleremedies.com