Frank Doorhof

Mini review Topaz Clarity

May 24

Posted by Frank Doorhof in Reviews | 2 Comments

A little while ago Topaz contacted me if I wanted to play with their soon to be released Clarity plugin. I have to be totally honest that I always had a weak spot for Topaz, they really have some cool filters and I know a lot of my friends also use Topaz.

Now one of the things I love about NIK/Google is tonal contrast and when I was told that if I loved that one I would LOVE Clarity I could not wait. By the way you also don’t have to wait anymore because Topaz has just released the plugin, if you follow this link you can get it (and you support the blog)

Well Topaz didn’t exaggerated, Clarity is like Tonal contrast on steroids, wow.
The layout of the plugin is very functional and when you start the plugin it won’t take you long to start playing with it and getting some awesome results, when diving more deeply in the possibilities I’m sure that you will be just as enthusiastic as me.

The first controls you will start to play with are the contrast sliders, with these sliders you can target certain areas and manipulate their appearance, but this is just the start, when you go further into the plugin you will very quickly see the HSL sliders, for people not familiar with this term it’s actually the Hue, Saturation and Luminance settings panel, meaning you can control colors not only by saturation but also by their hue and brightness (luminance), this is a very cool thing to have in a plugin like this because in fact it can prevent certain problems you could get on more extreme settings (which I did not encounter yet).
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More Petri 50mm 1.7

May 23

Posted by Frank Doorhof in blog, Reviews | 1 Comment

After the review of the Petri 50mm 1.7 a lot of people emailed me about how much they loved me doing these small reviews on very cheap lenses, so I promise there will be more but for today some more images with that super cheap 50mm 1.7 Petri lens.

These images were shot during a workshop with Marie, all natural light wide open.
As mentioned in the review it’s a mixed feeling I have with this lens, the images can be very sharp (even wide open) but the contrast is “weird” and the colors are “funky” but to be honest this is also why I love the lens so much. Do remember that I buy these lenses for their imperfections, if I want a perfect image I will mount the Zeiss 24-70 f2.8 or one of the modern Sony/Minolta lenses, these lenses however give you image “character”. Well at least I think so

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Results first day workshops UK Legoland

May 22

Posted by Frank Doorhof in blog | 8 Comments

Today the first results from the workshop tour in the UK.
This time the results from the workshop in Legoland from May 20th.
Model/Styling : Nadine
Assistants : Annewiek
Assistants The Flash Centre : Brian and Simon

Today we are in Birmingham in a totally different setting (old castle), I hope to edit some of those images before the weekend. We still have some seats left for the seminar tonight (contact the flash centre for tickets) and only a few seats in Edinburgh on Friday.

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Dark expressions

May 21

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Today the final images in the series with “black light”
Model : Lenaa
Assistant : Sandra
Styling : Nadine

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Dark water

May 20

Posted by Frank Doorhof in blog | 1 Comment

As you already have seen we have done some “black light” shots last week, today a few from that session we did with water.
Model : Lenaa
Assisting : Nadine/Sandra

the UK tour

May 18

Posted by Frank Doorhof in blog | 2 Comments

I can’t wait to arrive in the UK for our very first real UK tour.
In one week we will visit London, Birmingham and Edinburgh.

For the workshops Nadine is traveling with us as our stylist and model, but also to teach the students a few things about styling and being creative. The locations are absolutely breathtaking so this is going to be portfolio material for both me and the students. We kept the groups small so this means that we only have seats left for Edinburgh for the workshop, so if you don’t want to miss this event make sure to visit our friends at the Flash centre and book your ticket at http://www.theflashcentre.com/frank-doorhof-uk-tour-2013-c529.html

During the day I will teach the workshop for a small group, but in the evening there is still room for the seminars.
The will be filled with tips and tricks on using light, manipulating light and of course, workflow, light-metering, model coaching, finding models, social media and as an added bonus a whole section on improving your travel and street photography. For the seminars we still have room on all locations due to the flexible room sizes, so we won’t disappoint anyone

This is the kind of workshop/seminar that will keep you motivated to shoot for the rest of the year
So join us next week on our tour through the UK !!!

Album PSW 2013 Fantasy of Flight

May 17

Posted by Frank Doorhof in blog | 4 Comments

During Photoshop World I was not teaching a Pre-con myself this time because of the workshops I taught in New Jersey a day before PSW so I decided to hang out with Moose Peterson during his Precon at Fantasy of Flight. And although it was “blistering hot” I managed to get a nice collection of images which I’m sharing with you guys today.
This is probably my favorite of the bunch by the way.