Another tuesday, another process post. For today I chosen a photo of the Scott monument in Edinburgh, Scotland. So to get to this photo, I took 5 photos.

I loaded all the RAW files into Lightroom, where I corrected the white balance first (you can see on the original photo that it has a strong purple cast).

After that I exported all files into Photoshop and did the following steps (layers numbered from bottom up)

1. 0EV exposure
2. -1EV exposure, used luminescence masks and darkened the statue in the middle and few other bright spots
3. -2EV exposure, used to darken the statue even more
4. +1EV exposure, brightened the overall photo
5. +2EV exposure, brightened the sky more and few other areas
6. content aware fill to create a small part of the missing sky, which was lost due to lens correction
7. corrected a light glow around the statue, this sometimes happens when there is a huge difference between dark and light areas
8. added details using the high pass filter
9+10. added glow, check out my Glow tutorial to see exactly how
11. Color effex pro contrast to pull out more detail from the photo
12. darkened the brightest areas a little

And that’s all.
Continue to the full post to see the original 0EV exposure.

Today there is another process post for you. This time its a long exposure photo from Durnstein in Austria. I used the Hoya ND400 filter here, which made the water nice and smooth, giving so a beautiful reflection.

So to thet to this result

I dit the following (layer numbered from bottom up)
1. -1EV exposure to start with
2. -2EV exposure to darken few parts of the buildings
3. +1EV exposure to brighten most of the photo
4. +2EV exposure to get detail in the darkest areas
5. color balance just on the darkest exposure, as the shadow areas were to blue and I wanted them more yellow
6. color balance on the whole photo, added more yellow to correct for the ND filter color cast
7. first Color efex pro contrast filter to pull out more detail in the photo
8. added sharpness with the high pass filter
9. second Pro contrast filter, as there was still a little color cast
10. third Pro constras filter, as I wanted to pull out the darks even more (I would probably be able to get all this in one use of Pro contrast, but like this I can mas all them differently)
11. darkened the brightest lights
12. the water got too green, so this color balance corected this
13. added more saturation to yellows to get more color in the hills
14. a little bit of motion blur on the foreground water, to give it a more smoother feel
15. noise reduction, but not on the hills
16. more saturation to the blue color to get better looking sky
17+18. added glow, to see what exactly it does, check out this guide
19. a bit of brightenss to the darkest parts of the photo

Continue to the full post to see the -1EV exposure from which I started my edit

Today I have for you another processing post. They seem to be quite popular, so I will continue with them. I really hope they are helpfull to some of you or at least intereting :)

So for today I chosen one of my favorite photos, one from the Bojnice castle. The light difference here was very high, with the castle brightly lit and the stone wall in front of the camera haveing no light at all.

So to get to the image I took 10 brackets overall. First I a 5 exposure shot of the castle. I saw that the wall was still too dark on the +2EV exposure, so I changed the ISO from 100 to 1600 and did a second series just for the wall (I could have done it also without the ISO change, but it would take very long exposures to get any light there)

After that I exported all the images from Lightroom into photoshop, while only adding a little vibrance and some noise reduction.

Then I continuead as follows (numbered from bottom up)

1. 0EV exposure, from teh darker series
2. -1EV exposure to darken the sky and the castle
3. -2EV exposure to darkent the castle
4 to 7. -1EV to +2EV exposure from teh bright series to brighten the foreground and the wall
8. -1EV exposure from the dark series to correct few areas with a bad contrast
9. Color effex pro Tonal contrast to add more detail to few areas
10. Darkened the lights with a luminance mask
11. Color effex pro Pro contrast to add more local contrast to the photo
12+13. I retouched a little stand that was next to the castle, it really bothered me there :)
14. Added contrast to the basic midtones
15+16. Added more glow
16. Darkened the bright lights
17. Removed the greeen color cast from the bright lights
18. Desatureated the most saturated colors (mask created with TK Actions)
19. Darkened the very bright lights

Feel free to ask any questions about this

Continue to the full post to see the original 0EV exposures from both series of brackets.

I forgot to post a process post last week, but here is a new one for today. This time it’s the Pannonhalma monastery crypt in Hungaria.

So to get to this result

I took 6 exposures, just to be sure that the light are not overexposed. In the end I used files form -3 EV to +1 EV and had no need form the +2 exposure.

So in photoshop I did the following (layers numbered form bottom going up)

1. -1EV exposure
2. 0EV exposure to brighten few areas
3. -2EV exposure to darkend the ligts
4. -3EV exposure to darken the lights even more
5. -4EV exposure, created in Lightroom from -3EV, to darken few lights even more
6. Color Efex Pro contrast to brighten image and add more contrast
7+8. Blured layer and a curves layer to add more glow
9. Color balance to remove the yellow color cast
10. Added 0.7 exposure to brighten the image more
11. Added a little saturaton (around +15)
12. Pro contrast once more, there was still a little colorcast

You will also notice that I corrected the perspective using the Perspective Crop tool in Photoshop

Continue to the full post to see the original -1EV photo, as that’s the one I started with.

And it’s Monday again, so a new process post for you. Today it’s a little more complicated shots, as I used different techniques here.

So here goes. To take this shot:

I did the following. I took two series of 6 exposures. One normal, and one with my finger in front of the lens, to block the sun. At first I combined the original photos in Oloneo Photo engine to get this:

after that I used Photoshop to blend it with original shots, and to correct the colors. So the layers I used, from bottom up, were:

1. Oloneo blended image
2. +1EV exposure from a second series, where I held my finger in front of the sun, to remove flares
3. Color efex glamour glow, used only on the clouds
4. high pass to add more details
5+6. separate color balance for the sky and the castle to remove the purple tint
7. added saturation to yellows
8. corrected colors on the trees newar the castle
9+10. added glow using a bluerd layer
11+12. brightened the dark areas to even the image
13. removed color cast from the whites on the castle
14. more color balance on the buidings, they were still too purple
15. added more blacks to the image
16. more brightening to the dark areas
17+18. Color efex Pro contrast, used more on the building and only a little on the sky

Continue to the full post, to see the original 0EV from both series.