English Civil War re-enactment

English Civil War re-enactment, originally uploaded by foto-art.

The Sealed Knot at Nantwich, Cheshire.

Another shot of the Sealed Knot in action. This guy was spinning the blue flag around like a cheerleader, and I just kept taking shots hoping that one would come out O.K. I am quite pleased with this and a little modification would improve it a little more. I said in the previous photo that the photographer has to look at the backround as much as anything else. If you look below the blue flag on the right, you can see the yellow arms of a mechanical elevated platform, so to improve this picture, a little bit of pixel cloning using the branches of the trees to eliminate the yellow arms, would help to improve this shot.

Windswept tree 2

Windswept tree 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Windswept tree near Mow Cop, South Cheshire. A contre-Jour or into-the-light shot. Once again use of the rule of thirds is made. If I were to do anything more to this shot it would be to remove the branches on the expreme left of the picture by cropping or pixel cloning. If I chose cropping, I would be careful not to spoil the balance and arrangements of the elements, say by leaving the sun too far to the left. Cropping may demand some removal of the image all around to maintain this balance. The reflection of the sun on the lens at the right of the tree I am not sure about...I might try and remove it by pixel cloning and see if the picture looked better.

Wedgwood Hall - retouching photoshop tutorial

Wedgwood Hall, originally uploaded by foto-art.

The Georgian Hall of the Wedgwood family at Barlaston in Staffordshire is given an art effect trestment using Photoshop filters. The original image had a great big 4x4 car parked in front of the hall which of course completely ruined the shot. Turning ithe image into an art effect print made retouching the image a little easier. Getting in close using Photoshop by zooming in to a detail of the problem area and using the Pixel Cloning/Stamp tool, I was able to pick part of the image to the side of the car and stamp it over the car itself, thus replacing the car gradually, bit by bit, with the path and the wall of the hall. The secret is not to try and do too big an area at once.