Hi! It has been awhile that I haven't posted anything in my blog. My son, his friend R4 (Ramy IV), and I went to the LA Auto Show during the Thanksgiving break. Of course I brought my beloved Nikon D200 with 17-55 mm ƒ2.8 DX lens. I took bit over 100 pictures while we were walking all over the sophisticated advertisement-alike automobile showrooms. We had a blast time viewing at world-class automobiles. I took the gorgeous picture of the BMW M3 powered with 414-horsepower V8. The area was bit dark so I scrolled up the ISO to 400. The picture turned out into perfectly white balanced of the polar white paint from the BMW. I added the Cold Tone filter from Adobe Lightroom preset feature. It made it look more artistic and into perfect mood. (click image for enlargement).

Sassy Grass Green 1971 Cuda

My most recent project is adding mirror reflection of the beautiful 1971 Sassy Grass Green Cuda. I took picture of this Cuda with my favorite Tele-Zoom 70-200mm ƒ2.8 VR Nikkor Lens while it was on the patio table during afternoon sunshine. I used the Photoshop's pen tool to trace more accuracy the entire die cast car model and removed the unwanted background. I copied via layer and used the transform and flipped vertically to create a mirror reflection-like. The reflection was lightly touched with the gradient tool through the layer mask to make it bit ghost to look realistic. Photoshop did a great trick. (click the image for enlargement view)

Amsterdam, the Netherlands-an old church

Hi Friends,
My mother took this gorgeous artistic photo of an old church in Amsterdam on July 28th (last summer). I modified it with Photoshop's lens correction feature (Filter/Distort/Lens Correction) correcting vertical perspective of the church from mom's digital camera lens distortion. It's common thing on many architecture photos from cameras in general. I put high contrast and black & white filter to make the picture look stunning. Enjoy!

Original Image


Edited Image

How to Create a Signature Stamp with Photoshop

Hello, as I mentioned earlier from my blog about a tutor video about how to create the signature stamp using the photoshop's brush preset to add your own signature on photos. I finally have a chance on creating a video. I hope that you learned something about the fastest and easiest way putting your signatures on your photography work as your own copyrights. Have fun viewing the video! Let me know if you have any problems viewing the Quicktime format video then I'll revise the video to be more friendlier for any computers in general. Note: I've used the awesome Wacom Intuos 3 pen tablet to give smooth writing-style signature compare on creating a cumsby zigzag signature from the mouse. For more informations about the pen tablet, go to www.wacom.com

Kids at Stone Creek Campground near Idyllwild

We camped at Stone Creek near Idyllwild up in the mountains over the Columbus weekend. All of us had fun up there! I converted color into B&W and created borders from Photoshop. (click the thumbnail image for enlargement view).

My Greatest Photography Portfolio

That is one of my greatest picture portfolio. I am gonna print and frame it on my wall. Thanks to my friends for their wonderful compliments that they absolutely love this gorgeous photography work. You see the black border with Satisfaction fonts. It was from Photoshop CS3 for Digital Photographers book (I strongly recommended you to buy that book if you have Photoshop CS3 software.) I paid 12 dollars on Satisfaction download from the MyFonts.com. You enjoy the picture. The non-fuel injection 1957 Bel-Air Convertible picture was taken at the car show in Riverside. (click image for enlargement view)

Awesome Picture

It'll be really cool if my son and I go back to 1970's. Neil definitely looks like a skater in 1970's. I added the radical blur around Neil from PS. Guess what!?! I created my signature from the Wacom Intuos tablet then set it as Photoshop brush preset. Can use it like a rubber stamp. My next blog will be how to tip how to create your signature as a brush preset. Cool, isn't it?

Macro View of Chess

Thanks to my superb Nikon 105mm ƒ2.8 VR Macro lens happened to capture great picture!

Neil Skate Picture

Another picture of my son's Rock & Roll attempt.

Neil did Rock & Roll Trick in Costa Mesa

Neil had guts doing full Rock & Roll over the lip, he almost made it. Soon he will success on that difficult skate trick. Kudos to Neil for that effort. Me must brag about my adorable son! Ha.

Self-Portrait Picture of myself with the new Location Kit

I used the Lastolite Scott Kelby Location Kit - consists of: 2- Tri-Grip Translucent Reflectors, 30" Reversible Reflector, Convertible Boom Stand, and 4 Air Cushioned Light Stands on my self-portrait with pair of Nikon SB-800 external flashes. I ordered and received the location kit from B&H Photo from NYC several days before the Independence Day. It is worth it!

Fireworks during cold Independence Night in S.F.

Took this while my friend and I were on Twin Peaks in San Francisco. The setting was at 10 seconds from my camera on a tripod. It turned out beautifully and crystal clear. I never shoot fireworks in my entire life. I wanted to share with you this gorgeous picture into my blog. Enjoy! (Click the image to enlarge)

Isn't it unique for a Porsche with this kind of colorful shape graphics? I created the shapes from Illustrator CS2 and spreaded it on the 190-mph top speed Porsche GT-3 with Photoshop CS3 beta. It made it look like a clown Porsche, ha! The purpose is that I was playing around with Illustrator and experiemented the design from Illustrator CS2 and pasted on one of my pictures into Photoshop.

Isn't it cool of this Spiderman theme for the desktop? I created this from Photoshop CS2 and it was a fun project to do. If you want your name on this Spiderman desktop, feel free to let me know. Have a nice pleasant day! I got the tips how to create this from Corey Barker through the NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). I admire Corey's work and ideas!

Hasselblad

Picture taken of my wonderful buddies from the Hasselblad H3D-39.

What a great moments when my photography friends and I had chances to play with the 32 grand dollars medium-format Hasselblad digital camera at Samy's camera in Hollywood! The model is the of H3D-39, the world's first Full-Frame, 48mm DSLR camera system. This picture was taken handheld at slightly slow 1/45s at ƒ2.8 set at extremely low ISO 50. In actual size, the picture is little bit out of focus which we needed more practice. After took snap shots, I had chance on transferrring 39 megapixels pictures from one of world's most expensive digital Hasselblad into my newest Macbook Pro. Without the free Flexcolor workflow software installed, my Macbook Pro didn't recognize the file format. After the Flexcolor was installed, the pictures popped up from my screen beautifully! It was rich experience for us to experiment that exotic camera! Click the picture to view it in larger size. Happy shooting!

Studio Picture of my friend Norima

I took picture of my gorgeous close friend Norima at Samy's Camera of Los Angeles photography studio with professional portrait studio lights settings. The picture was taken in Nikon's RAW format and converted the color picture into black & white from Photoshop CS3 beta. I retouched the shade/dark areas with curve adjustment layer. It was from my Nikon D200 with 105mm ƒ2.8 micro VR (vibration reduction on). The camera settings were 1/40 ƒ4.0 ISO100.

Porsche 911 Targa 4

Click this image to enlarge

Saw a newest Speed Yellow (name of some kind of yellow/gold color) 997 platform 911 Targa 4S for a very first time at the LA Auto Show and I suddenly fell in love with it. I always love the Porsche engineering & design. The number 4 means it is an All-Wheel Drive (AWD) model. The Targa 4 pictured above was taken at the Riverside Porsche dealership parking lot during sunny morning. Originally the picture was in color and turned it into sepia used Photoshop CS3 beta black & white adjustment layer and added brown into it. Blurred the parking lot concrete background a bit from lens blur filter.

D200 w/ 17-55 mm ƒ2.8 lens at 1/160 and ƒ6.3

One of Inland Empire Mountains

Took this picture of smog-free view part of the surrounded mountains. It doesn't happen like this as smog-free days in Inland Empire area often. It was a gorgeous day because it has been raining during the day before today. I added bit of blue from photoshop's photo filter and unsharpen using the unsharp mask to produce slightly sharper picture. It was taken from Nikon D200 with 70-200mm VR (vibration reduction) at the setting of 1/320 ƒ9.0 ISO 100. Didn't use the tripod for this picture.

Recent picture of my son Neil

Here's a picture of my adorable son Neil. He's 10 years old and loves skateboarding and can see that it's his favorite thing to do. His interest in skateboarding came from me and my old skateboarder friends who influenced him to be into that fun sport! I want to tell you that he has talent with photography for his age. Many pictures he took turned out great. I encourage to keep up with his photographing skills. He must be proud what I have mentioned.

For bigger view, click on my son's picture thumbnail.

Picture of myself

Here's a picture of me with added black & white Lake Tahoe background that I did from Photoshop. My mom took the Lake Tahoe picture while she was there during her vacation. I never been there before. It'll be a great place to do landscape snap shots and I better go there to take gorgeous picture with my D-SLR camera with my son sometime this year! Definitely will share some good pictures after we visit Lake Tahoe!

Introduction

Hi,

I'm Brad from Southern California. It's my newest blog page. I am still learning how to use it, more I am familar with it and will be better. I am still experimenting on what I am doing with this blog page. That'll be some bloopers while I am working on it. Feel free to mention me when I am doing something wrong. Ha!

I am an avid photographer. I take pictures of anything I see and what I like. Here's my photography website link in purple highlighted color below this page that says "My Photography Portfolio Website." Let me know what you think of my work if you want.

Happy shootings!

Brad