Let’s look together on how I edited one of my recent photos. This time it’s this panorama of the Bratislava castle. So let’s go :)

This photo was a 4 shot panorama. I took all the shots with the help of the 17mm tilt shift lens, where I first leveled the camera, took a shot, that shifted to left and right and took another two shots, and then rotated the lens and shifted up to get the last shot.

From there I loaded all the photos into Lightroom and used the build in Photomerge function to get the panorama. I of course had to turn of Auto crop, as that would remove most of it.

It did leave the corners empty, but since those should be just the blue sky, I can correct that easily in Photoshop later. I continued by opening the shadows a bit and darkening the highlights. I also removed chromatic aberrations and played around with the perspective distortion. Lastly I cropped the photo, to have less of the foreground.

From there I continued in Photoshop. I had no need to many edits, so all I did was (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. the source from Lightroom.
2. a copy on which I cleaned the dust spots, filled in the missing sky using Content aware fill (it did not create a perfect transition, so I used the Patch tool to correct harsh transitions) and I corrected the perspective a bit more
3. added light overall contrast
4. added overall saturation, mostly to boost the color of the sky
5. noise reduction, except on the sky, to avoid color banding
6. ended up with making the castle shine a bit more with overall brightness

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.

Today I will show you how I edited this photo of the new Old bridge in Bratislava. So let’s get started :)

As you can see from the comparison of the final and starting photos, my main goal here was to brighten the shadow areas, to get at least some detail in them, and to darken the middle part around the horizon.

I started with correcting the chromatic aerations in Lightroom and not much else there. I exported all the files and loaded them into Oloneo Photoengine. The result I got here, was really close to what I wanted, but there were still few more tweaks needed. All I did in Photoengine was to move the strength slider until I got an even lit image.

From there I loaded all the files into PHotoshop, and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. Photoengine result
2. -2EV exposure, to darken few light in the distance.
3+4. -1EV and 0EV exposures, from which I painted in few parts of the water. HDR usually removes makes the water very soft when combining the images, and I wanted a bit of detail there.
5. On a merged layer, I removed any dust spots and also removed the white outlines from the bridge (check out this tutorial for more about this)
6. To add more detail and contrast into the water, I used Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast, and painted in using a mask just into the water.
7. Added a little saturation into the sunset colors around the horizon.
8. To brighten the rocks in front, and few parts of the bridge, I went back to Lightroom, and exported a version of the +1EV exposure, which I exposed by a stop. Then I loaded it as a new layer, and used luminance masking to apply it to few spots.
9. At the end, I found a few ghosted cars far in the distance, which I corrected from the -1Ev exposure.

 
And that’s all I did with to get the final photo :)

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.

Lets look today together at how I edited this long exposure photo from Budapest. And this time, If you want to try editing yourself, you can download the raw files of it from this Dropbox folder.

This photo was taken during a not so colorful sunset, so the biggest task here was to get some color into the photo and detail into the shadow areas.

 
I didn’t do much in Lightroom, just removed the chromatic aberrations. From there I exported all the files and loaded them into Photoengine. Here I made two HDR version. Most settings were the same, just strength and contrast, but in one I also applied the Natural HDR mode, so the grass in the foreground gets a more natural color.

 
From there I continued in Photoshop (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. The more colorful version of Photoengine result.
2. The less colorful version, from which I painted in the grass and flowers.
3. +2EV exposure, to brighten up few shadows
4+5. -2EV exposure brightened, to remove a bit of ghosting from moving grass
6+7. Color Efex briliance/warminth to get more color into the photo. I split it into two layers, so I can use different opacity on top and on bottom.
8. Added overall brightness and contrast using curves.

 
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.

For today, I will show you how this photo from the back side of the Hungarian parliament was edited. So let’s get to it :)

This shot was taken by placing the camera around 1-2cm above the new fountain that is right behind the parliament. I had to wait a moment, as the water stream is not always the same, and it only creates a nice reflection when it slows down. Also I had to wait until the military patrol passes by, so I don’t have them in the shot (felt a little like a game there :)).

 
So when you compare the final and the original photo, you will see what needed to be corrected. The scene had quite a huge dynamic range, as night shots usually have. I wanted to tone down the lights, and get some color into the sky. I also wanted to remove some of the distractions from the shot, like flares and the tent on the right.

I started as always in Lightroom. Here I removed the chromatic aberrations and applied lens corrections. From there I continued in Oloneo Photoengine. Here it did wonderful job combining the shots, but the colors got a bit too strong. So I used the Natural HDR mode to tone them down, but also saved the more colorful version, to use in Photoshop to add color partially.

From here I continued in Photoshop with following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. Oloneo Photoengine result in Natural HDR mode
2. The more colorful result, but set to 30% opacity, to get more color.
3+4+5. Retouched out a light trail on the left and a moving flag. Also removed lens flares on the right.
6+7. -1EV and +2EV to remove ghosting from moving flags.
8. Darkened the bright lights from the -2EV exposure
9+10+11. Selected a part from the left size, flipped it and transformed to fit the right side, over the tent. Then used the clone stamp, to create more of the floor in front of it.
12. Color efex pro contrast to get a bit more detail in the sky, and more local contrast.
13. More overall contrast using curves.
14. I felt the bright areas became a bit too dark after all the edits, so I used the original HDR result to brighten them back up.
15. A bit more exposure on the sky, to make it brighter.
16. And to finish a bit more exposure overall using curves.

 
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: