Since last I was traveling last week, there was no processing post. But since now I’m back home, let’s get back to them. For today I chosen a fireworks photo from Budapest, I posted not so long ago. It’s a single exposure, so a little different than most of the Before/after posts. And if you want to know more about how to take fireworks shots, check out my free eBook Capturing Fireworks. So lets get started :)

So first let’s look at the final and the starting photo. As you can see that the original was not so colorful, but just by changing the white balance, one can archive a color cast, that can really help the photo.

Final result

Original photo

From this photo, I created two version in Lightroom. The first one was to be used as input for Oloneo Photoengine, so I only cropped the image, removed a little noise and chromatic abberations. The second one, was to be used in blending in Photoshop, for the very bright fireworks. So for that one, I brightened also the darks, and darkened the highlights.

Oloneo Photoengine start

Lightroom edit

 
I then edited the one exposure in Oloneo Photoengine, adjusting just the strength and contrast. I then loaded it, together with both of the Lightroom edits into Photoshop and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):

1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. The second Lightroom edit, from which I painted in the fireworks
3. The first Lightroom edit (the Oloneo input), from which I painted in the parliament
4. Merged layer, on which I removed few dust spots, and the tree in the corner.
5. Noise reduction on most of the photo.
6. Color Efex Tonal contrast filter, to get more contrast and detail into some parts of the photo, mostly the smoke from the fireworks.
7. Toned down the yellow color a little
8. A little overall contrast to the photo. I usually end with this, as the re-sizing and sharpening removes a little contrast.

Oloneo Photoengine result

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: