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:

Formatted for Pinterest

I continually add new things to the blog, but not always mention them in the blog posts right away. It mostly because that I want to spread up new things across more days, so there is something new when you visit the blog :) And also this gallery, has been on the blog (and pinterest) for a few weeks now. It’s a gallery of photos that were specially cropped for the Pinterest view. I don’t take credit for the idea to do this, but I still hope you like it :)

You can see it on the blog here or directly on Pinterest here.

Vintage style

I don’t often the use the Analog efex plugin, as I never like the result on landscape or cityscape shots. But it’s a little different on people shots. There I don’t mind a little more vintage look. And as in this photoshoot with the lovely Alexandra, I used a vintage camera as a prop, it was just fitting to put a little more vintage look on it. What do you think?

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Best way to enjoy Ello

I’ve been spending too much time on Ello recently. I just like the site, even in that unfinished state it is currently in. And while browsing it today, I took this photo. It really seem like all the web now looks better with a vertical screen (even my blog is no exception :)). And no, I don’t have my screen like this all the time, it was like this just for the photo :)

Also, the Photographers to follow on Ello list, is just growing like crazy, now already including over 250 different photographers. Feel free to check it out :)

With a view of Matterhorn

Zermatt is just full of small hotels like this. It is a really nice place for a visit. Very quite, since there are no cars, but still quite busy. And of course you can see the Matterhorn almost from everywhere. The only not so nice thing, is the amount of constructions everywhere. Actually in this photo, I had to remove two cranes and a huge number of cables. They just didn’t fit the style I wanted.

This is a HDR from 2 series of 5 exposures, one for the sun, one for the scenery. HDRs created in Oloneo Photoengine and combined in Photoshop.

One usually only needs to edit a photo, but from time to time it can happen, that one also need to edit the exif data directly. And here I don’t mean stuff like the creator info, or copyright information. I mean the exposure time, aperture, iso and similar. You may be wondering when this is required. The answer is simple. Especially in HDR, there are applications (Oloneo Photoengine, Photomatix Pro, PtGui and more) that need to access this information, so they will be able to blend the images correctly. In some of them, like the Photomatix pro, you can override this information, but in other you are depended on it. And it can easily happen, that you have to use an exposure modified in Lightroom, or you used bad settings on your camera, and you just need to change one of the values in exif.

For me this situation happens mostly, when I create HDR panoramas. If you look through my guide on how to do this, you will see that I use PTgui for this. But if one wants to save the result as blended planes, PTgui had to recognize the set of images as HDR brackets. For this to work, each set has to have the exact same values, especially same exposure time. And for some reason, when I take multiple series with the same settings, sometimes, the time on one or more is off. Like having 15s instead of 16s and similar. Not sure if this is a problem with Magic lantern firmware or Canon firmware, but it happens, and so I need to correct it.

 
The software I use for that is called PhotoMe. It’s a freeware that can be found and dowloaded from http://www.photome.de/. It’s a very handy tool, and it allows to see and to edit all of the information in the exif and then save it back as a raw file. Don’t be scared off that the latest version is from 2009. It still works fine, and from the software itself, you get updated until 2012. It works fine for all the RAW files I tried, but if you have a much newer camera, I would suggest to try  first, if the RAW are supported.

 
Using the software is very easy. You just select the file you want to edit, change the values, either by rewriting them, or choosing from the list of available options, and save as new file. It can’t be easier.

I hope this helps you if you ever need to change the exif, and feel free to suggest other software that can do this, if you know any.

Playing around with Windows 10

One of the more interesting technical news recently, was the announcement of the next Windows version, the Windows 10. And I just love playing around with new software, even in beta form. So of course I immediately downloaded the test version and installed it. But since I still have to use Photoshop regularly, I only put it on a virtual machine, just to be sure.

And right now, I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised. The system looks cleaner, the installation was simple and quick, and for such an early build, it works really fine. My biggest fear was, that they would move away from the Windows 8 interface too much, returning to the one from Windows 7, but luckily, they included both.

What do you think? Have you tried the system? Or plan to?

Alpine peaks

Most of the photos I took in the Alps, I took with the wide-angle lens. The views are just so wide, and you see so much, that it’s hard to zoom in. You just always feel you are loosing something. But I forced myself to put on also the 70-200mm lens, but only for a moment. And this is one of the photos I took :)

This are the peaks of Alps, as seen on the opposing side of Zermatt, when looking from the Schwarzsee. This is a single exposure (I used a polarizing filter to darken the sky), edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.