Two colourful parrots cross each others’ paths in a race to get ‘home’ first.

Take an early off for the day, or maybe skip office on a day of heavy downpour. Take a moment to unwind, find the simpler joys of life as you glance at your desktop, and maybe plan a quick monsoon getaway!

Calender : June-July 2010

*To Download – Just Click (Single Left Click) on the Desired Resolution, and you would be directed to the Save File Dialog.

For Computer Screens:
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For Mobile Screens:
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Here’s to the Summer Rain! Cheers!

©2010 Ramit Batra. All wallpapers displayed at f-stop.in here are created with Photographs taken by the author, Ramit Batra. The ‘Splash’ Photograph by Ramit Batra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

When your eyes are tired, take a peek at your desktop, and sip some nimbu paani (Lemonade) or maybe aam ka panna (Green/Raw Mango Drink) or just plain Cold Water.

Calender - April 2010

*To Download – Just Click (Single Left Click) on the Desired Resolution, and you would be directed to the Save File Dialog.

For Computer Screens:
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For Mobile Screens:
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For iPhone:
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Here’s to a Hot Indian Summer! Cheers!

©2010 Ramit Batra. All wallpapers displayed at f-stop.in here are created with Photographs taken by the author, Ramit Batra. The ‘Splash’ Photograph by Ramit Batra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Let us begin by splashing each other with a lot of colour. Hoping that this year stays full of smiles, colour and sweetness of sweets that we exchange today. We wish you a very Happy Holi and Spring time that makes you want to go for long walks on tree-line pavements and breathe in the dewy fresh smell of the first Spring flowers.

The slightly chilly mornings and evenings make us think that winter’s still here and the clear skies filled with sunshine in the daytime make us think about getting that air-conditioner serviced or getting that disused ‘desert cooler’ fixed.

While we juggle our thoughts and enjoy the warmth of the days and the cool of the nights, Nature shows us yet another way to spend a perfect sunny day. Take inspiration from the little kitty that is probably lost looking at a butterfly and enjoy nature.

Introducing this month, again on popular request, wallpapers for your mobile phone screens. We hope you enjoy having them as much as we enjoy making them for you.

Calender - March 2010

For Computer Screens:
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For Mobile Screens:
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To Download – Just Click (Single Left Click) on the Desired Resolution, and you would be directed to the Save File Dialog.

Happy Springtime!

Buy chocolates or flowers, and other presents for that special someone before its Sunday, February 14, 2010 and love is all around you! And before it gets too late and your friends come knocking, do make sure to stock up on a lot of Gulaal in a myriad of colors to Celebrate Holi. Phew! February is all set to be an Incredible month in Incredible India and the rest of the wonderful world.

While winter’s set to say goodbye, there’s still time to enjoy the wonderful feeling of enjoying a cup of hot coffee or chai, sitting out in the sun in the company of friends and loved ones. We hope you enjoy the little bit of sunshine we send to your Desktops.

Calender - Feb-Mar-Apr 2010

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Just Click (Single Left Click) on the Desired Resolution, and you would be directed to the Save File Dialog.

God Bless!

*Don’t forget to Come back for your a new Wallpaper in March!!

*And don’t forget to pick your February Calender next month

Calender - January 2010

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Just Click (Single Left Click) on the Desired Resolution, and you would be directed to the Save File Dialog.

God Bless!

We offer you wallpapers with messages of Peace
from M.K. Gandhi, Mother Teresa & Others, available for free download.

*To download, Right Click on the Desired Dimensions of the Wallpaper, and click Save Link As…

Wallpaper 1 : “A mind at peace, a mind focused on not harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe. – Source Unknown”

Wallpaper 1

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Wallpaper 2:  A smile is the beginning of peace. – Mother Teresa

Wallpaper 2

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Wallpaper 3: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi

Wallpaper 3

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I pray for those who lost their lives,
I pray for those who are still fighting.
I pray, for enough has been lost already.
I pray for Peace, which is lost, somewhere, torn between.
I hope, this pain doesn’t last anymore.

In Peace…

Tutorial: Colored Smoke

I am sure Smoke Art pictures have fascinated you. And you always had this question in mind – How can smoke look so beautiful? And if you are one of those, who have gone a step further to actually click pictures of smoke – You must have been wondering – How do you get Red & Green Colored Smoke? Or those Lovely Pinks!

Well, let me try and simplify some of the mysteries of thy Artsy Smoke.

This article comes from my personal experiences of Smoke Photography. There is no ‘Perfect’ way to capture/color or create smoke. But after a constant trial and error, I have found these to be the most convenient of ways.

The Setup

Creating Smoke:  The best way to get a good Volume of Smoke is to use Incense sticks.

Background: A fairly Dark Non-Shiny Background. As close to Black as you can manage. (Black Velvet is my personal Favourite.)

Light: Using a Slave Light with a Snoot aimed at the Smoke. (Personally, I have achieved the best of smoke shots with Sunlight coming from a window, controlling it with a Cardboard with a small slit). You will have to be really careful as to prevent light from falling on the background and your camera-lens.

Ventilation: Make sure you have a good Exhaust system to drive the smoke out of your room. This is one area which is so commonly ignored by people shooting smoke.  Firstly, A lot of smoke will make sure light is illuminating areas which you donot want, and also reduce the contrast due to the haze.  And Secondly, too much smoke in a closed room is a very unhealthy practice. (*Also make sure your smoke sensors are resting for a while.)

Camera/Lens: I prefer shooting with a 50mm and a 100mm Prime lens stopping down to f/8 to get sharp streaks of smoke. Since you would not have enough time to focus and look at beautiful loops of smoke at the same time, make sure your camera is installed on a tripod, and manually focus the range you expect your smoke to be visible.

1-01 : Light & Camera Setup

Pic 1-01 Shows a typical Light & Camera Setup that I use.

If you are shooting in a fairly dark room, with good ventilation and a controlled source of light, you would be happy with your results. I cannot emphasize enough on the fact that any bounce of light can ruin the contrast in your pictures. So make sure only the smoke gets the light.

The other thing to keep in mind is to keep the Smoke column steady. If your room is closed on all sides and there is no abrupt movement in your room, chances are, you will be able to see straight columns of rising smoke. This may seem great at first, but redundant pictures get real boring. You may want to send  a small gush of wind towards your smoke stream to get interesting loops. You can do this by waving a piece of paper or by simply blowing some wind near the smoke.

The trick is to find the right balance between air turbulence and stillness.

Post-Production with Photoshop

Bravo! So you finally managed to get some great smoke pictures. Before you proceed further, try and sort out your sharply focused and interestingly shaped smoke pictures out of the lot.

If you got the setup right, you would have pictures like this one (I am sure, much better!), right out of your camera!

*Don’t Worry, if you didn’t manage to get a workable file from your shoot. Feel free to Download this file to Practice your Colored Smoke -

Test File for Download - Click to Open the file in Full Resolution, and Save.

.

1-11 : Straight from the Camera

The problem with this picture will be clearly visible, once we proceed to the next few steps.

Open this picture in Photoshop, and Invert the picture using Image>Adjustments>Invert or hotkey Ctrl-I. The image should look similar to the one below [1-12].

1-12: Inverted Image

If you look carefully at the blank space in the image, it is not as white as we would want it to be. This is because it is extremely difficult to have a perfect Black background in the first place. Some light always manages to seep in the background. And thus, the inverted image is not perfectly white.

Let us correct this first. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels or use the hotkey Ctrl-L. Click the 3rd (Extreme Right) Eyedropper icon. (Refer image 1-13.) And click on the blank space of the image as shown. This should help you get a perfect white.

1-13: Setting the White Point

Looking better. Ain’t it? But the details are not as clear as the ones you saw at that oh-so-cool website with Smoke pictures. So lets work on them next.

Make a copy of the just modified layer by going to Layer>Duplicate Layer… And Change the Blend mode of the Duplicate layer to Multiply. Don’t hesitate to add multiple copies of this layer with Multiply Mode selected. I am sure your current file looks similar to this (1-14).

1-14: Making Details Stand out with 'Multiply'

By the time I reach here, I start to see great details in the smoke. And more often than not, start seeing beautiful shapes and figures. But sometimes there are patches which I would not want to see in my final art print. This is when you should clean up what you don’t like. With a Soft White Brush Paint over the areas you don’t like, and get a cleaner looking image.

1-15: Clean Up

I Painted White over the areas marked with a Red Circle.

Once you are done cleaning up your image, its time to flatten all the layers you created so far. You can do this by Going to Layer> Flatten Image.

At this time, I am almost ready to color the image. I would go back and forth the Multiply & Paint with white procedures, till the time I am happy with the look of the image. By this time, you need to be clear about what you are focusing on. What shapes you want to stand out, and what shapes you want to omit. Don’t forget to save older versions of your file, You might want to consider looking back at how the smoke looked 5 iterations earlier.

After a lot of Paint-overs & Multiply-Layers, your smoke art would start to look like this now -

1-16: Ready to Paint

Now comes my favourite part of Adding color to the Smoke Art. There is no single technique that is guaranteed to give you an out-of-the-world result. But this particular method has always given me interesting results to work with.

1-17: The Mighty Gradient

This is the Magic Trick. All you need to do is -

1.  Select your Smoke layer and Select the Gradient Tool from the Tool List on the Left of your Workspace.

2.  Select Radial Gradient as a Type for this Gradient.

3.  Change the Mode to Overlay

4.  Select your color combinations (Like that shown in 1-18)

5.  Now get ready to click. I prefer keeping the start point of the Smoke Trail to be the Click 1 and place the Second Click around where the Trail ends.

This Color Gradient would give you an effect similar to this one here -

1-18: Color Combinations

Bravo! Did you just create some fantastic looking Smoke Art!!

If you followed the guidelines closely, I am sure you managed to get great looking Colored Smoke pictures. If you still have and Queries or Doubts, Please feel free to Comment in reply to this post.

Thank You!

You can have a look at my Smoke art Pictures here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramitbatra/

Crouching Dragon

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