I’d say using a Vivitar 283 flash, hand-held and firing with a test button during a four second exposure about as simple of a lighting technique as it gets, but the PROCESS of painting with light DURING a long exposure is what I was trying to explain in regard to the “Two Glasses Illusion. “

Pretty much the same PROCESS used on both the Vegas Bike shot and the “Two Glasses Illusion.”

Yes! I also have mixed feelings about the two Photoshop filters, the trails and the lens flare (generally pro shooters try to avoid lens flare, not intentionally create it), but I photographed my son’s bike in front of the Vegas Welcome sign on a split second surprise after dinner project and after looking at the finished photo I though it looked STATIC as in NOT MOVING and it seemed to me that a STUNT BIKE should have some indication of movement, so I added the speed trails and the lens flare to make the shot a little less STATIC.

Some purists say if you touch an image with photoshop you’ve poluted it, these are usually amatures who have created some kind of rule that do not exist in the world of commercial photography. As a professional photographer for over 27 years I should be the one who touts the pureness of not using photoshop, but I am a realist and when you shoot for clients, the end-product is what matters, nobody cares how you got there in the world of professional photography, they only care about the END RESULT. Virtually all pro shooters today use photoshop or any other process that enhances or manipulates their image to produce a better end-result.

Ansel Adams did it when he flashed his negatives in the darkroom to lower the contrast or used masking in his view cameras to assist in a wider ZONE of exposure. Every photographer dodges or burns their prints to add more detail or block detail.

Every analog photographer rubs their palm on the print in the developer to heat up the developer in that spot allowing it to process faster than an unrubbed area of the paper.

When you bring a flash in with an umbrella or a diffuser or bounce it off a wall or ceiling, use a blue filter to turn 3200 tungsten light into 5500 degree kelvin daylight white or a silver or white reflector to add light in the shadows…

All of that is MANIPULATION OF THE IMAGE for a BETTER END RESULT, so photoshop is nothing more than a NEW TOOL added to a long list of tools, a few listed above to make photographs more than just snapshots.

Photoshop is merely another tool, not unlike using a 300mm 2.8 lens to shoot poirtraits and fashion so the background is compressed and mottled, which is why the 300mm 2.8 and the 400 4.0 are the favorite choices of fashion shooters. Not unlike using a wide angle lens to create keystoning vertical lines or concave distortions or merely because that is the only lens that allows you to get the entire group of 50 people in one shot within the confines of a small room.

All different ways of manipulating the creation of an image to produce a desired END RESULT and for a professional photograper, it is the END RESULT he sells, not the creative process.

Art directors don’t care how you did it as long as you did.

STG2