General Articles ▪ NY Photography Locations ▪ Interviews ▪ Photography ▪ Photoshop Tutorials       General Articles   The New York City Waterfalls 90 to 100 foot waterfalls in New York City? The summer of 2008 made this a reality. Although the actual product was barely as grand as the plans made it out to be, the waterfalls that adorned the harbor was an interesting distraction from business as usual. The project has since been dismantled, but this section will be left online for historical purposes.     Waterfall Exploration Safety Don't go chasing waterfalls unprepared. Check here for some safety tips for exploring streams and waterfalls.     What you need to know about trespassing Many of the areas we would like to explore are on private property. Much of this land isn't marked. Be careful and do the research before you head out. This means looking for signs of private ownership as well as knowing the laws regarding trespassing. Here is our interpretation of the trespass laws in New York State.     Terminology A list of our commonly-used terms and their explanations.       Top New York Photography Locations   Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester Our search to find the best locations for photography in New York State started in this isolated Victorian cemetery in Rochester, NY. What began as a "spooky" strip of hills and gullies, evolved to one of the most beautiful resting places in the country. Housing many notable Rochesterians, as well as many forgotten inhabitants, it has countless stories to tell.           Mount Hope Cemetery in Winter We returned in Winter to capture the cemetery blanketed in snow.           Mount Hope Cemetery in Spring Good weather returns to the grounds; grass, flowers and little critters seem to take over.   Interviews   Jim Weeks - Forty-Sixer We talked with community member Jim weeks (AKA Backpacker) about his recent achievement: climbing all 46 high peaks  of the Adirondacks to become a member of the exclusive 46ers.     Russell Dunn - Nature Guide Author We talked with waterfall guidebook author Russell Dunn about his passion, his books, what New York State has to offer.             Photography   Photographing Waterfalls: A Beginner's Guide The first of a series; this guide will help the novice camera user take better photos of not only waterfalls, but anything in general. Future articles will concentrate on more technical areas of waterscape photography including advanced shooting and Photoshop techniques.       Photographing Waterfalls: An Intermediate Guide: Photographic Filters The second in a series, this guide will help the intermediate camera user take advantage of photographic filters to achieve better photos of waterfalls and waterscapes. Filters, such as the Neutral Density variety help achieve special effects like the silky look on many waterfall photos.       How to Take Sharper Pictures Not getting the results you’d like out of your camera? Are your photos soft and lack the crisp details you’d expect for the money you paid? Here is a guide to getting crisper, sharper photos from your digital camera. For the beginner and advanced user.         Photoshop Tutorials     Correcting Tone Using Levels This tutorial will help you learn how to use the Levels function of your favorite editing tool to correct the white and black levels of your photo. Properly adjusting the luminosity of your photos can lead to better contrast, more pleasing gradation and overall better tone.       Using Contrast Masking This tutorial will teach you how to use contrast masking to give your images and even tone and  more detail. By flattening the tone curve of you image, shadows and highlights will come together and hidden details will pop right out. It's a great technique for fixing uneven exposures.       Using Adjustment Layers & Masking This tutorial will teach you how to take advantage of Adjustment Layers in recent versions of Photoshop to enhance your photos with more precise control. Masking will allow you to apply adjustments to only select portions of the image.        Fixing Foliage Some tips on enhancing dull and off-color foliage in your landscape shots. Also an easy technique to shift the color of leaves in your photos; easily turn a summer scene into a fall landscape.       Fixing an Overexposed Sky A great way to realistically fill in the blown out (white) skies in photos caused by overexposure. Learn how to fill in the sky with realistic blue tones and cloud-cover.        Soft Focus Great for softening scenic photos as well as portraits, this quick and easy soft focus method will preserve more sharpness and give you better control than standard blur methods.        Contrast Boosting Finished touching up and image, but it still looks kind of dull? Boost the contrast and increase the vividness by brightening the highlights of your image to give it visual pop. This technique emphasizes the extreme shadows and highlights of an image.       High Pass Sharpening  This classic sharpening method gives you excellent detail retention and superb control for getting your images sharp for screen and print output.