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09 01.2015

Our host in Yaremche – Villa Iris

Posted by: Roman Shymko

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This winter time we have chosen another hotel in Yaremche than we have done last time. This time it was Villa Iris.

Villa Iris At Night

The hotel is a really great place to spend your days off. It has a great location in a wood and the owner is so kind to pick you up on your arrival and get you to the bus station on your leave. This is really appreciated.

They have a really amazing cuisine. It is really the one of the best we’ve tried around. Although they do not have a restaurant and you have to order you lunch or dinner additionally. But this works fine.

The room we had was covered with wood and looks stylish. There is a balcony that adds more romanticism. The facilities are new and comfortable.

Villa Iris Room With Mirror

Villa Iris Room With Balcony

WI-fi is not strong but we had it enough to connect sometime.

The only thing we liked to add is the room cleaning (at least trash cleaning). I think that could be discussed but that would be great to have it included in the basic plan.

So, I’m really satisfied with the hotel and recommend it to everyone traveling in Carpathian.

Topics: interior, trip report, tutorial

Location: Carpathian, Ukraine, Yaremche

04 02.2014

Interior of St. Vitus Cathedral (HDR vertorama)

Posted by: Roman Shymko

Posted in: Photo works, Tutorials

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As I was requested to share a photo of the interior of the St. Vitus Cathedral I’m ready to post the first interior of this great cathedral. Although I have a one from my previous trip, this one should be more interesting because (a) this an HDR vertorama and not a single shot and (b) my skills grew up that let me do this image better.

The interior of the St. Vitus Cathedral makes you feel the power. The constructors were success in their work and the result is very great. The only thing (for me as for a photographer) that was annoying is the crowd of tourists. But this cannot be fixed as everyone wants to see this beauty as I do :)

St Vitus Cathedral Interior Vertorama

This vertorama was merged of 5 HDR images merged of 3 hand-held shots each. Every image was shot using ISO1600. Then I processed each image in DxO Optics Pro 8 to remove chromatic aberrations and correct optical distortions (the best software to do this on my opinion). Then each image was processed in Photoshop using Dfine 2.0 by NIK Software (great noise reduction software). After corrections every 3 images (EX0, EX-2, EX+2) were merged in HDR image using Photomatix Pro 4.1 with manual settings to keep the image as much realistic as possible (I like HDR that look realistic). After I had all 5 HDR images they were merged together into a vertorama using Photoshop Photomerge function. The result of this merge was corrected using Transform function of Photoshop.

Here is the schema of this work to show all images involved in the process visually.

St Vitus Cathedral Interior Narrow Vertorama Schema

Topics: church, HDR, interior, St. Vitus Cathedral, tutorial, vertorama

Location: Czech, Prague

19 11.2013

Collage tool for Photoshop

Posted by: Roman Shymko

Posted in: Personal

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I’ve found a great tool to create collages in Photoshop. This is an extension that can be easily installed. I was looking for some tool like this for a while. This is very simple in use but requires some imagination. You may create rows and columns, set the spacing values and roundness of the corners.

Here is some example of the collages I’ve made using the images from our trip to Santorini.

Santorini Collage

Here is the link to download the tool. It is free!
Tych Panel 2

Topics: collage, tutorial

Location: Greece, Santorini

08 09.2013

Portrait of Anna – how I did that

Posted by: Roman Shymko

Posted in: Art-work, Tutorials

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This article is dedicated to the process of how I painted the Portrait of Anna. The painting was my first try to use the old school technique that was used by Leonardo.

Portrait Of Anna

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Topics: girl, naked, tutorial

06 08.2013

Casa Bianca – our host on Santorini

Posted by: Roman Shymko

Posted in: Personal, Photo works, Tutorials

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Being at Santorini we stayed in Casa Bianca in Imerovigli village (find it on booking.com). This hotel is very small. It has only 9 suites on 2 levels. We had a double room on the first floor (ground floor).

Here is a brief feedback on the hotel:

The nice things:

1. The apartment has a great design. The white buildings with white interior of the room are amazing. The flowers and grape leaves are very romantic.
Casa Bianca Double Room

Casa Bianca Entrance To Room

Casa Bianca Yard With Pool
2. Maria is so helpful and friendly! She helped us with finding nice restaurants and cafes as well as with tips for traveling between the villages. Also, she helped us with reordering our booking in the best way to save money and organized transfer from the port at the late night as well as back when we were leaving.
3. There is a small pool in the yard that is a nice feature. I was very enjoying of swimming there at evening before going to bed.
Casa Bianca Pool
4. The breakfast is served just personally to your room.
Casa Bianca Breakfast
5. The apartment is in very quiet place and has nice location with view to caldera from the roof.

The things to improve:

1. The bathroom is rather small and the curtain is not closing the bath.
2. The breakfast variety is not large although it was enough for the morning and considering it is served specially for you at the time you ask :)