As every Monday, I have for you a new process post today. This time I chosen to show you this photo from Prague. This is taken from one of my favourite spots there (you can see my list of spots here).

So let’s first look at the finished and the original 0EV exposure.

Finished photo

Original photo

There was not to much there regarding the dynamic range, but still a lot of things to tweak. For some reason, I don’t remember, I took 7 exposures here. In retrospect, I would probably be OK with three, but since I already had all, I used them.

I started with tweaks in Lightroom, where I corrected the white balance and lens distortions.

All exposures

Lightroom edit

From there I loaded all the exposures into Oloneo Photoengine, and just by changing the strength and contrast. From there I continued into Photoshop (layers numbered from bottom up):

1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. 0EV exposure, set to 20% opacity, to recover a little of the contrast lost in the merge
3. 0EV exposure once more, to remove ghosting
4. -2EV exposure to darken few bright areas
5. desaturated a little the strong yellow lights
6. Color Efex pro contrast to add more local contrast to the photo.
7. Retouched out the light streak I caught in the bottom left
8+9. Added glow to the photo
10. Little more contrast to the whole photo
11. Color efex detail extractor to add more details to the sky and the trees in the foreground
12. Color balance to make the photo a little warmer
13. A little more contrast
14. Brightened the photo a little
15. TK actions Vibrance mask to add more color to less saturated areas of the photo.

Oloneo merge

Photoshop editing

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

Today, I will show you how I edited this late night photo from Dubai. This is of course the Burj Khalifa, as seen with a long lens from the Palm Jumeirah. So let’s start.

Here you have the final photo and the original 0EV exposure. As you can see, it was really missing a lot of contrast. I also wanted to get more detail, make the buildings in the background more visible, and mostly, tweak the color, so it fit more with the strong neon color of the top of the Burj Khalifa.

Finished photo

Original 0EV

As always I started in Lightroom. I removed lens distortion, vignetting, and tweaked the tint, so it’s more purple. Then I exported all the exposures as 16-bit tiff files.

All exposures in Lightroom 

Lightroom tweaks

After that, I loaded all the exposures into Oloneo Photoengine, and added strength and contrast. I then loaded the result into Photoshop together with all the original exposures. The edits I did there were the following (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. Color efex pro contrast, but only on the buildings, as I wanted more local contrast just there.
3. A little overall contrast
4+5. More contrast to the brightest areas. I put the layer in a group with its own layer mask, as I wanted the effect just in few areas.
6. During the edit I decided that I want the whole photo purple, so I blended few parts from the -2EV exposure to change few lights.
7. Just a merged copy I forgot to remove :)
8. Color efex Darken/lighten center, to add a vignette back.
9. TK Actions vibrance mask, to tone down the most saturated colors
10. A little more overall contrast

Oloneo Photoengine

Photoshop Edit

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

What day is today? Is it another Monday? It is, so it’s time for a new process post :) For today, I chosen this photo I took on my way from Zermatt in Switzerland. We just stopped the car next to the road, as I really wanted to capture the curving of it. So here goes.

As always, here is the finished and the original photo.

Finished photo

Original photo

I took 5 exposure for this, but I probably would be OK with 1 or 2. I just take more to be sure. I started my edit in Lightroom, where I removed the lens distortion, chromatic aberrations and corrected the white balance.

All exposures

After Lightroom edits

From there I exported all the exposures as 16-bit tiff files, and loaded them into Oloneo Photoengine. To get the result I wanted, I just changed the strength, and added a little contrast. From there I loaded the result and all the original exposures, into layers in Photoshop and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):

1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2+3. I removed the car on the side and corrected the white line around the road
4. Corrected few ghosted cars by blending in parts from the +1EV exposure
5. Merged copy where I cleaned out dust spots
6. Brightened the clouds from the +2EV exposure
7. Color Efex Pro contrast to get more detail into the picture
8. Little desaturation on the yellow colors
9. Color Efex Detail extractor to get more detail into the rocks
10. Brightened a little few shadows using the +2EV exposure
11+12. Added glow to the photo
13+14. Added ore contrast to the photo
15+16. Added more detail to the grass using Color Efex Tonal contrast, and desaturated it after that, so the colors are not overly saturated.

After Photoengine edit

Photoshop screenshot

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

And we have another Process Monday here (or does it just sound silly? :)). Today I will show you one of my recent photos, that isn’t actually a HDR. But I think I mentioned it few times, not every photo needs to be HDR. So here goes:

As always, first the result and the original photos.

Finished photo

0EV exposure

As you can see, thank that I used a polarizing filter on the lens, I had enough dynamic range in the single shot. I actually took 5 exposures, just to be sure, as I always do. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. The most editing on this photo was done in Lightroom. For the 0EV shot, I changed the white to make the photo cooler, added more contrast, opened the shadows, brightened the whites, added clarity and vibrance and removed chromatic aberrations and vignetting. One note to this, if you have white objects in a photo, pushing the whites slider to the right will make them much more dominant, and less grey. Helps a lot in a lot of photos :)

Original exposures

After the Lightroom edit

After that, I opened the photo in Photoshop, where I did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. The Lightroom result
2. Copy I created, to do a dust spots clean up.
3. Color Efex pro contrast, to get more local contrast from the photo
4. Color Efex glamour glow, used only on the clouds, to make them look a little brighter and softer
5. Color Efex Detail extractor, painted just on the hills, to get more detail in them
6. Brightened the top corners, as there was a little vignetting visible, and I found it distracting.

 
And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

Oh.. is it Monday again? So again time for a process post here :) For today, I will show you how I edited this photo of the Dubai marina, taken from the Palm Jumeirah, sometime around midnight. So lets start :)

Let’s first take a look at the finished photo and the starting 0Ev exposure.

Finished photo

Original 0Ev exposure

As you can see, based on the camera light meter, the photo would be just too bright. I took only 4 exposure for it because of that, as I was certain, I would just not need the +2Ev exposures. So as always, I opened all in Lightroom, where I corrected the purple ting and changed to a little warmer color balance. Also I removed chromatic aberrations and corrected the horizon line.

All exposures

Tweaked in Lighroom

From there, I exported everything as 16-bit tiff files and opened in Oloneo Photoengine. Added strenght, a lot of contrast and made the photo even warmer. From there I loaded everything into Photoshop and continued from there (layers numbered from bottom up):

1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. -2EV exposure, to darken few bright spots n the photo
3. +1Ev exposure, to brighten few areas that were still too dark
4. removed noise using Imagenomic Noiseware
5. wanted to go for a more softer feel, so used motion blur for the whole image and then masked it only onto the water
6. added overall more contrast to the photo
7. added even more contrast to the water, and few areas on the buildings

Combined in Photoengine

Photoshop edit

And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here: