A busier day today as I hoped and while I hoped to take some new shots, I ended up with none. So today just a quick repost of one of my videos, on how to take multiple brackets on the Sony a7R (and similar cameras).

For today, I chosen a photo I took of the entrance of the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I would have really like to do a more lower view, showing the whole entrance here, but it was never empty. So instead, I looked more up, and focused more on the details on the wall. They really look wonderful.

This is a HDR from 6 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. I needed so many exposures, as the outside wall was very dimly lit compared to the inside.

The hill around Danube are just filled with castles. Most of them are ruins, but they are all cared for, and all provide great vantage points for photos of the area. And this is one is from the ruin above Spitz. To be exact, this is the Hintenhaus ruin.

Btw. I hope you are all busy voting in the Photo editing contest here :)

This is mostly a single exposure, with a second one only used to brighten few shadows. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Technique: Photoshop Edit, Number of exposures: 2, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 14, Middle exposure time: 1/60s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.358490, 15.406879

The time to submit entries for the Photo contest sponsored by Aurora HDR from Macphun & Trey Ratcliff has ended. Now it’s time to vote for your favorites, to choose the peoples choice winner. Head over to this Facebook album and like the one, or multiple, that you think are the best edits.

The voting is until the end of this week, when both the jury selection and people choice winners will be announced.

Also don’t forget to check out out sponsor Aurora HDR. You can try it right now by downloading a trial from Aurora HDR web-page.

Today I will show you how I edited this photo, even if it’s not a HDR. Maybe even that will be interesting to some of you :)

So let’s start with comparison of the final and original photos. As you can see, as it’s a fog shot, the photo is very low contrast, and quite bland.

I did quite a few edits in Lightroom. Bumped up the contrast a lot, toned down the highlights of the bridge, opened up the shadows, added a bit of clarity and vibrance. From there I opened the photo in Photoshop.

In Photoshop I did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. The Lightroom result
2. A copy on which I cleaned up the dust spots
3. Another copy, on which I removed few of the lights in the distance, and a partially visible ship on the right. They bothered me in the composition, as I wanted to focus only on the bridge (I like to do bigger edits on new layers, to not do have to start from the beginning in case of any mistakes)
4. Bit more contrast added using curves
5. Added a little overall saturation, to make the colors more dominant.
6. Added noise to the sky and the water, to prevent color banding from creating.
7. Color Efex Tonal contrast, set to blend mode color at smaller opacity.
8. Color Efex Tonal contrast, set to blend mode luminosity. This is the same as the previous layers, I just duplicated it and changed the blend modes, so I can choose where the effect and where the color is applied. I used the color with smaller opacity, and the detail with a custom painted mask, so it’s just on the bridge and the shadow.
9. To finish up, I bumped up the saturation again by a little (+2, so very tiny adjustment)

And that’s all I did with this photo, check out the Process category, to see all other process posts I posted on the blog before.