I haven't written about Flood, my favorite Photoshop plugin, for a while, so I thought I'd remind those of you who don't have it yet that it's such a great creative tool. Flood (and now Flood 2) allows you to add realistic reflections in any of the pictures you've already taken. It's only $33 (you can also upgrade from the original to Flood 2 for $15), and I consider this the creative bargain of the century for photographers. Look what I was able to do with this desert nude silhouette at sunset. The original capture had no water, of course, so I added the reflection using this remarkable plugin made by flamingpear.com. The first thing you do in the easy-to-understand dialog box is establish the water line with the 'horizon' slider. After that, there are sliders (complexity, altitude, wave length, etc.) that control the types of waves in the water. If you don't want to mess with all the sliders, simply click the die (singular of dice) icon. This is a randomizer, and you just keep clicking it until you like what you see. It's that simple. My settings for this film image were 1/125, f/5.6, Fujichrome Velvia 100, and I used a 250mm lens which, in this medium format film camera, was equivalent to a 125mm lens.
4 Comments
Aug 9, 2017, 10:57:09 PM
Jim - Thanks, Richard. It will be announced in my eMagazine.
Aug 9, 2017, 8:11:14 PM
Richard - Jim,my wife gave you a great complement on your nude. I was wondering how many photographers can look back 20yrs & be good enough,creative enough,to use an existing shot & make an old slide film image into a completely & even better photo. Well done & please keep me posted when it comes out,R.
Aug 8, 2017, 4:11:33 PM
Jim - Hi Richard, I wrote about that in a few places over the years. You have a good memory. This picture was not part of that book, though. I paid $50 per model in Rio de Janeiro in 1997 compared to $300 to $500/hour in Los Angeles. The book was published, and it was called Fantasy Nudes. It is out of print now, but I'm planning on re-releasing it with a digital update as an eBook.
Aug 8, 2017, 1:55:26 PM
Richard - Hey Jim,was this back in the day when some client wanted you to do a nude book, when you lived in LA & the nude models were so expensive you ended up going to South America (Brazil). I would be interested in knowing where I read the story. I remember the concierge found you the models (twins included). How much did they charge back then (year) & was the book ever published? Also,the name. Bet you didn't expect anyone to bring that time up. Thanks very much,R.