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:

I hope you all had a great start into the new week, and as almost each Monday, let’s look at one of my photos, and how it was edited. For today, I have for you this blue hour shot, from the Kuchajda lake in Bratislava.

As you can the photo was quite OK already from the start, it just needed to brighten the shadows and get a little more color into it.

Finished photo

Original photo

I started with 5 exposures in Lightroom, where I only did the basic tweaks. I removed lens distortions and chromatic aberations. Then I exported all the file as 16-bit Tiff files and continued in Oloneo Photoengine.

All exposures

Lightroom tweaks

There I just changed the strength and contrast and saved the result. I loaded all the exposures and Photoengine result into Photoshop and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. +2EV exposure, from which I brightened the middle part
3. Color effex pro contrast on the whole image, but toned down a little on the sky, as it created a shadow on the top part.
4+5. Added glow to the photo.
6. Color balance on the middle part to make it warmer.
7. Added contrast to the bottom part of the image.
8. High pass sharpening to add detail to the photo.
9. +2EV exposure again from which I manually blended the light stars around lights.
10. A little more contrast in few areas, especially on the buildings

Photoengine tonemapping

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:

Since I posted so many fireworks photos this last few weeks, I chosen one also for todays process post, to show you how it was edited. So this is of course one of the photo from the New Years fireworks. So here goes.

Finished photo

Original photo

This was of course an edit from a single RAW file. I started in Lightroom, where I first removed the perspective distortion, toned down the highlights and removed chromatic aberrations. From there I exported two version, one normal and one underexposed by one stop.

1st export

2nd export

I loaded the first export into Oloneo Photoengine, where by changing the strength and contrast, I created a base for my further edits. Then I loaded it, and the two Lightroom exports into Photoshop. There I did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up).
1. Oloneo Photoengine result.
2. The brighter Lightroom export, to brighten the ship and the corners.
3. Darker Lightroom export to darken the center explosion.
4. Merged layer on which I removed dust spots and filled in the corners.
5. Color efex tonal contrast to add more contrast to the explosions.
6. Imagenomic noiseware to remove noise form the sky.
7. Added overall contrast.
8. Recovered the shadows a little from the Photoengine result.
9. Selective contrast to few more spots.
10. Small de-saturation of the red color.
11. The colors were still to strong here, so I used a copy of the Photoengine result, set to color and just softly brushed over few spots.
12. Brightened the center a little, as it looked too gray after the edits.

Oloneo edit

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:

And we arrived at another Monday, and you know what that means :) Another process post. For today I chosen this manually blended night photo from Dubai, so let’s get to it.

Finished photo

0EV exposure

As you can see, the most edits were to correct the color and brightness of the photo. There were also few changing lights, that I wanted to capture in the shot. I took 7 exposures here, just to be sure. I did not know how dark I have to go to get a good looking moon in the photo, and in the end I haven’t used them all anyway.

All exposures

Lightroom tweaks

I started in Lightroom. As I wanted to do very few edits, as I wanted to avoid color banding as much as possible, I did quite a few edits already in Lightroom. I opened the shadows, darkened the highlights, added contrast and exposure. I also corrected the horizon line and changed the white balance. From there I loaded the exposures into Photoshop and continued from there (layers numbered from bottom up)

1. -1EV exposure, from which I started
2. Complete sky replaced from the -2EV exposure
3. -3EV from where I darkened few bright lights
4. 0EV to get back some of the highlights
5. Merged copy, as I wanted to retouch out the wheel on the right side
6. Little recovery, of the rotating wheel on the right, as I didn’t like the blended version
7. More contrast to the top part of the image
8. More contrast to the whole image
9. Little more overall saturation
10. And a little bit more contrast once more

Here you can see the screen shot from Photoshop, and you will notice a huge amount of color banding in it. But if you read my post Dealing with color banding few days ago, you know why it is so. Once I merged the layers, the banding disappeared :)

 
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 the few last week there were no processing posts, but from today I’m getting back to my normal posting schedule. So Monday will again be dedicated to editing. Today, let’s look at one of my Christmas themed photos, taken at the Eurovea shopping center in Bratislava.

Here you have the final and the original photos in comparison. The photo was just too dark, there were many moving people in the background and also the statue was not shiny enough for what I wanted.

Finished photo

Original photo

As alway I started in Lightroom. Corrected the lens distortions, chromatic aberrations and white balance. I also re-cropped the photo a little, to get rid of the letters on the side. From there I exported everything as 16-bit tiff files, and loaded them into Oloneo Photoengine.

All exposures photo

Lightroom edit

In Photoengine I put all the brackets together, just tweaking the strenght, exposure and contrast. Then I loaded all the exposures into Photoshop. I didn’t need that many edits, mostly just to remove the blurred people. So I did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):

1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2-8. Original exposures, each one tweaked using curves and hue/saturation, to be similar to the Photoengine result. The I painted in the parts I wanted to use from them to hide all the people.
9. Merged copy, on which I removed noise and all the dust spots. I also removed few more people, the weren’t moving in between the exposures.
10. Color Efex Pro contrast to get more contrast into the photo
11. Color Efex Darken/Lighten center, to darker the corners and brighten the center.

Photoengine edit

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: