How the time passes. It really has been a long time since I shared some RAW brackets with you and so I’m doing that today. So here is one of my photos from last year, and here from Dropbox you can download all the RAW files I used.

 
And to make it easier for you, this is one of the photos I shown in the process posts, so you can find here, how I edited it :)

 
If any of you create your own version, feel free to share it in the community hub (the spot in the bottom left of the page :)). If you share it anywhere else, please note that I still own the copyright of this photo and mention me as the author and link back to this blog. Thank you.

It’s been long time since I posted a photo of the Apollo bridge, so I’m posting one today. Maybe it’s time to get some more photos of it again, try a some new composition :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Oloneo Photoengine, Number of exposures: 5, Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8 IS II, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 5.6, Middle exposure time: 12s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 48.135814, 17.128297

Another Monday, another process post for you. Today I will show you how this star trails photo was edited. So let’s get started.

Finished photo

One from the original exposures

Of course here I used a lot of photos. 80 in total here. All with same settings and all loaded in Lightroom to start with. There I did few tweaks, mostly white balance correction, removed noise and chromatic aberrations, and exported everything into Photoshop. Normally for star trails, is enough to set every layer (except the background one) to the lighten blend mode and thats it. But since there were few clouds in the sky, that crossed in front of the camera while I was taking the photos, I first masked them out on every photo that they were visible. Luckily, it affected only about 15 photos, so it was not so much work :)

Lightroom edit

All exposures

Then I merged all the images, as Photoshop worked very slowly with so many layers opened. After that I continued with the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. the merged copy with the star trails
2. one of the original exposures, to mask in the trees, as they were too bright after the star trail merging. Also they were moving between the exposures and I wanted to remove ghosting.
3. adjustment to the layer beneath, to add contrast and brightness
4. added saturation to the photo
5. retouched out few branches that didn’t fit
6. sharpened the star trails using the High-pass filter method
7. added overall contrast

After that I cropped the photo, to have it more focused on the sky.

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:

Having a table top tripod in the bag when one tries to take a shot from very low above the ground is very handy. Of course the day I took this photo I had none, but I ordered it immediately afterwards :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. Photo taken at the Neusidlersee in Austria.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 5, Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8 IS II, Focal length: 35mm, Aperture: 14, Middle exposure time: 1/4s, ISO: 200, Tripod used: yes, Location: 47.860188″, 16.827815