Under the Margaret Bridge

The Margaret Bridge is quite a unique bridge in Budapest, as it’s a three-way bridge. Connecting not just the two sides of the Danube, but also Margaret Island. And this is actually the view from the Island, from under the bridge. It’s also a very yellow bridge, with many yellow lights.

That actually not that unusual as almost all of the historical buildings in Budapest have very strong yellow lights. You can see them in the background here. It makes for a very cool night cruise on the Danube, but also for a very hard time taking any night shots.

This one is a blend of three shots, done in Photoshop.

Blue hour at the Matthias Church

Let’s move to another country today, to Hungary, with a photo of the Mathias Church in Budapest. You can actually also see a part of the Fisherman’s Bastion here, as I was standing on top of it while taking this photo. There is a walkway you can use, so it is easy to get there. And you don’t have to pay in the evening.

This is a two-shot vertorama, combined in Photoshop. I did have to clean up a few people, using the Generative Fill in Photoshop (beta). It really is helpful.

A spot with a view in the High Note Skybar

It has already been years since I took this photo in the High Note Skybar in the center of Budapest. I looked at it already a few times, but never posted it. The reason was simple. As this is a bar, I had to hurry, as there were people around. And in my hurry, I completely forgot to move my camera backpack. So it was nice and prominently visible in the photo. And it was in a spot where it was just hard to remove. But to be fair to myself, it was in a shadow, and it was already late, so it was not that visible through the viewfinder.

Here is where the new Generative Fill in Photoshop (beta) comes in. With it, it took me seconds to get rid of the backpack. It worked almost like magic. If I wanted to remove it traditionally, with cloning and painting, it would be just too much work to look natural. It’s really lovely how by introducing a new tool, Photoshop can give new life to photos that one would discard previously.

But it’s not without problems. I have been running into an error message often. It says “The generated images were removed because they violate user guidelines.” For instance, in this photo, there was water spilled on the table. Generative Fill would refuse to remove it. I tried different selections but had no luck. I presume that this is a result of the feature being still in Beta, and hopefully, they will resolve it quickly.

This is actually the biggest issue with all the AI tools there. That it can just refuse to work. A crop tool with always crop, the brush will always paint, but the AI can just not work, for no apparent reason, and that’s not good.

This photo is a two-shot vertorma, each shot blended from 3 photos. All done in Photoshop.

Some time ago in Budapest

I don’t even know if there were St. Stephens day Fireworks in Budapest this year. I don’t even remember when I was there the last time. It feels so strange, as I used to be there at least 5+ times every year. Strange times we live in.

This is a single exposure, double processed, then blended back together in Photoshop.

The center of Budapest

I started with a panorama to check the performance. This one, from the center of Budapest, is a two-shot panorama each shot from 5 exposures. Both first blended together, and the photo merged into a panorama and finished.

Here are few details from this photo, as it’s hard to see in these big panoramas.

And for those that would like this one as wallpaper, here is a version in 5120×1440 for super ultra-wide monitors with 32:9 aspect.