Dragons

This was a carnival procession FujiFilm 4700z (digital).

I enjoy the busy feel of the photo, like I am there with the colorful dragon, well exposed, very sharp.

The people that are in the picture on the left and the right of the dragon are very very distracting, mabey a little cropping. this picture is hard to do anything with, or get a feel

WHAT THE! how come the dragon looks happy

Hi,
Interesting snapshot. By the eay, it is a lion.
yoyo

Thats a Lion!!!

What does a dragon look like? I always thought of them as dragon costumes. I need a better education obviously.

Young shooter - tried to crop this in a number of ways and finally decided to leave as is because I felt that a tighter crop lost all of the occasion of the carnival. However if you can give an example of what you mean I would appreciate it

Hi,
Their heads are different. You can take a look at the website http://www.twghkywc.edu.hk/~activitynews/01-12-02(10)/. The first photo is a lion but the second photo is a dragon. Generally speaking, a lion is controlled by 2 persons but a dragon is controlled by many persons in the dancing.
yoyo

Gee, I didn't know they were Lions either? Here Kitty, Kitty! It's really cool though to learn the difference , thanks for sharing the information Yoyo.

This was the result of about 2 mins on a photoshop style program, but it gives you an idea of how I would like to have seen this presented.

regards

matt

Hey Matt,

I love the way you modified that picture! What effects did you put in it to get that??? I can see you blurred the background and that you put in one of those filters (i can't remember what the name is, maybe you can refresh). Did you do it in photoshop? I would appreciate letting us know exactly how you did this, and how we can do this...i have Photoshop btw, but i don't know how to do that yet

Kudos 4 the both of You!

Mando

I'm glad you liked it, but I'm an absolute novice at post-processing! I used a program called Arcsoft Photostudio, but I expect these things are generally similar from program to program.

I cropped the photo to the proportion that I thought focussed most on the lion. Then I outlined the lion with a magnetic lasso, and made that into layer 2. I copied that again as layer 3.

With the original photo (layer 1), I applied a Gaussian blur to fake a shallow depth of field. I popped layer 2 on top of that, which was the sharp image of the lion. On top of that I put layer 3, but with this one I made the layer about 50% translucent, and applied a bit of Gaussian blur to try and hide the sharp edges of layer 2. Finally I nipped over it with a clone tool trying to cover up the worst of the areas where you could tell I'd been adding layers. It really did take about 2 or 3 minutes! I expect someone with a bit more experience would tell you a better way of doing this.

regards

matt

Roger - I really hope you don't mind me doing that version, I thought it was easier to show you rather than explain my thoughts on what I would like to have seen with this pic. I had a horrible thought that that might have seemed disrespectful, which wasn't my intention at all. m

Yoyo,

Many thanks - I had always thought they were all dragons now I know better and must keep my eye out for a dragon to photograph - Could be a might difficult in the UK, When is the Chinese new year? I will try and get into London China Town and see if there are any parades around.

Matt

Glad you did - a totally different view of the photo altogether and I now see what can be done with these Tools. Now I have to figure out how to use them, I just bought paint shop pro but all I have used it for so far is to crop pictures.

I tried layers the other night and ended up in a right mess. Also tried getting rid of bits of a photo like Tuna did with the ariel in The Sapniard, and it was obvious where the item would have been.

Is there a good tutorial on how to do these things either on the Net or book to buy?

Hi Roger,
The Chinese New Year is usually in January or Feburary. The new year date is based on the Chinese almanac. You can find the exact date here at http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/CFestival2.htm

yoyo

Yoyo,

Isn't it bed time in Hong Kong? Thanks for the Web site will try and be in London on 9/2/2005

reading, I think www.londontown.com has a schedule of when the Chinatown New Year celebration in London will be.

http://www.londontown.com/LondonEven...YearGala/efbf3

I like the shot, and the busy-ness. Although it's not art, it's an attractive documentation. Love the colors, esp the orange. Also it's nice and sharp.

I would have liked to see you take the picture from a lower perspective, though. I rarely like pictures looking slightly down on things.

Kelly,

Thanks for the web sites will take a look. Point noted and will watch out for this in future.

I'm with Aaron in that I enjoy the busy feel of this shot as it brings forth the excitement of the day. The fact that the Lion is looking towrd the camera and seems to be smiling adds to the fun feel I get from this shot. I would not change a thing