Here are the winners for the online contest :

1st Prize
- Actual day photography for up to 4hrs AND
- Pre-wedding (or bridal) photography* by Steven Leong Photography
- Winner : Violet Lim

3rd Prize
- 16″ by 24″ (~A2 in size) unframed print
- Winner : Lee Wenli

Thank you to all who have participated and for those who did not win, do remember to watch this blog for any upcoming online contest in the future!

Question 1 : What is the location of the photo taken for the cover photo on the Steven Leong Photography Facebook page?

Question 2 : On what category did Steven Leong win the 1st Prize at the Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA) 2011 competition?

Question 3 : Besides being a wedding photographer, which Asian organisation is Steven Leong the Official Photographer of?

Question 4 : Why would you want Steven Leong Photography to be your photographer instead of another wedding photographer?

Question 5 : What is the dream location for your pre-wedding photography?

Please email the ANSWERS to all the questions (question 1 to question 5) in ONE email to thebest@stevenleong.com WITH your favorite photo with your partner/fiance’.

CLICK HERE for a list of prizes as well as other terms and conditions of the competition.

So, what are the prizes you say?

The 1st prize winner will receive FREE actual day photography for up to 4hrs AND FREE pre-wedding (or bridal) photography* by Steven Leong Photography

The 3rd prize winner will receive FREE 16″ by 24″ (~A2 in size) unframed fine-art print.

*for photography locations outside KL/PJ area, the winner shall provide trasportation / accommodation

So, how do you take part? Its easy, just look out for the questions that will be posted on THIS BLOG after 12pm (GMT+8) on Monday, 9th April 2012. The FIVE (5) questions shall be posted FIVE (5) minutes apart.

Find the correct answers for them on this blog as well as the Steven Leong Photography Facebook page and follow the instructions that will be posted on Question (5) about how to submit your answer.

The person that submits the first email that contains the correct answers on question 1-3 wins the 1st prize, the 2nd email with correct answers wins the 2nd prize and the 3rd email with correct answers wins the 3rd.

In the case if emails are received at the same time containing the correct answers, answers to questions 4 & 5 shall be used as tie-breakers with the most creative or interesting answers winning.

The winner of this competition shall be announced on 13th April 2012.

9th April 2012 UPDATE : The list of questions have now have all been announced, there are listed HERE for your convenience; send in your entry as soon as possible for a chance to win the amazing prizes!

It is indeed an honour to receive such recognition for my work from an international organisation. This is a milestone and it will not be only one; I will both be hoping and working towards being better in the future.

p.s. hope you guys like this image as much as I do and for those who are wondering, neither the sunset nor the motion blur on the bride’s dress are digitally enhanced or added in.

Being mid-day, and only have so few speedlights, I barely had enough power to fill the entire group but overall it was a nice experience and I quite like those photos. And here is the one I liked best :

There will be 11 sports competed at this event, they are Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Chess, Goalball, Powerlifting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Ten Pin Bowling, Sitting Volleyball and Wheelchair Tennis. Competition venues are all located in and around Solo City in central Java at the most populous nation in South-East Asia.

Adrenalin has already started pumping and I will likely not update by blog until I am back home in Kuala Lumpur.

Now… the fun begins ~!

For more photos, check out my gallery HERE.

(A) Preparation for Selective Adjustment

1. Open the file you would like to sharpen

2. Go to “Layer ==> Duplicate Layer”

3. On the Duplicate Layer dialog box, just click “OK”

4. Please ensure you can see the “Layer” tab, if you cannot, go to “Window ==> Layers” OR Press “F7″ on Windows

5. Your screen should look like this :

(B) Sharpening
Before I start writing this section, firstly this ONE OF MANY ways to increase the “visual acuity” or make an digital image appear sharper. This is mainly to illustrate how to do selective sharpening but this sharpening technique may or may not be the most suitable for your image.

1. Go to “Filter ==> Sharpen ==> Unsharp Mask”; the Unsharp Mask dialog box will appear.

2. In the square image window in the Unsharp Mask Dialog box, left click and drag the image to the area you would like to sharpen. In my case, it is face and clothes the athlete on the right.

3. Now, select values for the “Amount”, “Radius” and “Threshold” to taste; everytime you change the value it is reflected in the square image box inside the Unsharp Mask dialog box. Experiment with various values. Below is a list of values I commonly use:

Basic sharpening for a well-taken low ISO image - 50% 1.0px 5
Strong sharpening for a well-taken low ISO image – 100% 1.0px 0
Removing slight motion blur or slight camera shake – 25% 3px-5px 5
High ISO – 75% 1.0px 10-20
Enhance details – 200% 0.5px 10

The values above are for reference only, the values used is highly image, camera and lens dependant but as a general rule, the maximum you should sharpen an image that is for printing is until some digital artifacts like halo or jaggy start to appear at 100%; for images that are for web-display and are at web-sized (i.e. <1024px wide or tall), sharpen more conservatively.

4. After you have selected the values you want; click on "OK" on the Unsharp Mask dialog box.

5. You are now done with sharpening.

(C) Layer Masking
1. Go to “Layer ==> Layer Mask ==> HideAll”
2. Notice that the “Background Layer” copy now has a layer mask filled with pure black just like the image below :

3. Press “D” to reset the foreground and background colors to pure white and pure black.
4. Now with the foreground and background colors reset to default, left click to select the “Brush Tool”

5. With the Brush Tool active, click on the Brush Type selection triangle to open the Brush Type selection drop-down and select a soft-edged brush by left-clicking on it

6. Proceed by painting using pure white over areas you want the sharpening to be visible and paint pure black over those who you don’t want any sharpening to be applied.

7. You can toggle the brush color between pure white and pure black by tapping on the “X” key; the brush size can be increased and decreased by using the “[" and "]” keys. You can zoom in and zoom out of the image to have finer or coarser control while painting the mask too. (Zoom In is CTRL & “+”, Zoom Out is CTRL & “-” on Windows)

8. As you paint the mask, you will notice the Layer Mask preview on the Layer Tab for the Background copy layer reflect how you painted your mask.

9. Once you are done painting the mask, you can now apply the mask to the image; this is done by “Layer ==> Flatten Image”;

10. You will now notice the layer “Background copy” and its mask disappearing from the Layers tab. Now all that is left to do is to Save the image and exit Photoshop.

Congrats~! Now you know how sharpening can be applied selectively on a image; remember you can rinse and repeat the procedure as many times as you like in the same or different areas of the image but do remember not to over-do it; an image full of digital artifacts is worse than one which is blur.