Signed by Metallica

Camera: Canon EOS40D
Lens: 17-85mm EF USM Kit Lens


Apps used for processing:


RAW file developed in Canon's Digital Photo Professional, then transferred to the iPhone with PhotoSync.
SimplyHDR - to create a color HDR picture. I used the setting Dark Contrasted... for it and created two versions. One version with all settings sliders for Radius, Strength and Smoothing set to the full right, then I created another one with the Smoothing slider set to the full left. The picture with no Smoothing brought out every little detail nicely, but as a negative side effect, every little corn of dust and every irregularity in the inner velvet cover of the guitar box also came out and this didn't look good. With the Smoothing slider set to full right, those unwanted details went away, but here the guitar looked too smooth. 
Blender - to blend both pictures in Normal mode, 50:50 slider setting. This gave me exactly what I wanted to have but still there was too much dust in the picture and too many unwanted details in the velvet background. I did not want to mess around for an endless time to remove every little dust corn in TouchRetouch so I transferred the picture to my laptop computer and applied the Remove Dust and Scratches filter in PhotoShop before I transferred it back to the iPhone. Removing dust in TouchRetouch is possible indeed but you'll need a lot a patience since the iPhone is very slow in processing, compared to a big computer.
To re-sharpen my picture I was loading it into PhotoForge2 to create a high pass version, then blend it in blender with the version I finished in PhotoShop. Settings blend mode Overlay, slider 100%, high pass on right side. Now my picture looked perfect to me and everything I still needed was a nice frame. I found one in Camera+, then I added the solid frame(s) in FilterStorm3. I added a black 10% frame first with dark gray outline, then a 5% white frame, then a 25% black frame again. To let the framed picture stand out from the black background of my blog I then added another thin 2% fark gray frame to it.
A+Signature for copyright waterm


July 28th 2009 was a very special day for my daughter Anna-Katharina as she met Metallica again in person. Lucky winner of a Meet&Greet before their last show in Copenhagen she asked them to sign her guitar which they kindly did. She only got it for her 17th birthday on April 30 of that year and did not have much chances for playing it. But since it got signed by the James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo it became the holy artifact of a true fan. I guess she'll never play it again.