Is it really another Monday already? Looks like it is. So as almost every Monday, let’s take a look at one of my photos and how it was edited. For today I will show you this interior shot, taken in the church of the Pannonhalma Archabbey in Hungary.

So let’s first look at the final, and the starting image. As you can see, the dynamic range of the scene was quite high, from the very bright window in the back to the dark shadows around the corners. This all needed to be corrected into a dynamic range, that can be show in one photo.

 
I took 6 shots here, as I wanted a -3EV for the window. As always I started with Lightroom, where I removed lens distortions, chromatic abberations, and corrected the horizon line. I then exported all the files as 16-bit tiffs to be used in Oloneo Photoengine.

 
Here you can see the files in Oloneo Photoengine, and the result of Photoengine edit. If you would like to try this yourself, you can. Just go here to download the files (all six 16-tiff brackets I used, just resided to 2000 px wide versions) and you can get the trial of Oloneo Photoengine here.

 
I only changed the strength and contrast in Oloneo Photoengine, and maybe a little warmer white balance. From there I loaded the result into Photoshop, and I haven’t even added any of the original files, as I seen no need for them. Then I did the following edits:

1. Oloneo Photoengine result.
2. A copy of the first layer, on which I used warp to change the left side, so it more matches the right side.
3. Color Efex Detail Extractor to get more detail in the photo.
4. Imagenomic Noiseweare to remove noise from the photo
5. Color balance to make the highlight a little more warmer.
6+7. Added glow to the photo, just removed it with a brush from few areas, that were too saturated afterwards.
8. The light areas were to colorless for me, so with a soft brush, with orange color I painted them using a layer set to soft-light.
9. Color balance once more, as I felt the photo is still to purple.
10. I still wasn’t satisfied with the symmetry at the end, so once more I used warp to correct the photo even more. That’s what happens when one needs to take photos in a hurry and does not center the camera properly :)

 
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:

Discount coupon code

Just a little reminder, for the next week, you can still use the coupon code “TWENTYOFF” to get 20% off the price of my video tutorial series, Master Exposure blending.

Different view of the Parliament

While in Budapest, I had the change to get on the roof of one of the hotels in city, which gave me quite a new view of the city center. And one of the photos I took was also this one, towards the Hungarian parliament. To bad that all the buildings in the Budapest center are all the same heights, so even when one gets on a roof, one is newer above the city. Actually only on the top of the St. Stephens basilica, one gets a little higher up. Of course one can go onto the Buda side, on top of the hill, but that’s a different view, from far away.

So as I said, this is a little different view of the Parliament, one that even I haven’t seen before :) This is a HDR from 4 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, and finished in Photoshop. I mostly worked on toning down the colors, as the yellow decorative lights in Budapest are really extreme.

Free copy of DXO Filmpack 3

I randomly came across this offer from DXO. For the next two weeks, one can get a free copy of their Photoshop plugin, that includes filters that simulate analog film cameras. So if you think you could use something like that, give it a try. And of course, it’s free, so nothing to lose :) The plugin can be downloaded from here.

The church on the hill

While I was in Budapest earlier this week, the weather during the day was not that great. Normally I would not really mind, as I would just take photos in the evening and morning, but as I was there taking photos for a client, that could be only taken during the day, this was not the best scenario. Of course it got better in the evening, but that was just too late. But hopefully I got few usable ones :)

This is one taken in the evening, one could say after work :) It’s the Matthias Church on the Buda side of Budapest, on the hill overlooking the city. This is a HDR from 2 exposures (I took more, but as I was zoomed it a lot, few of them got bury), created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

I came across this wheel in Budapest quite randomly, as it’s usually not there, and it’s also quite hidden from the street level by all the surrounding buildings. Still, I really wanted to also go up, but just didn’t got to it. A two day visit is really very short. But still, I took few photos, even if the ground, but I think it would look much better from a high up spot. But there isn’t really one accessible in the area.

And since I took a behind the scenes photo while taking this one, I’m also including it here :)

This is a blend of three exposures, done in Photoshop.

So I got back from Budapest few hours ago and here I have a first photo from this trip for you. This is of course the Hungarian Parliament, captured during the blue hour. I did this photo from the Margaret bridge, and I really had problem with the bridge shaking very heavily, especially when a tram passed by. One would think that such a huge concrete structure would be more stable. But after a while of searching, I found a spot where the shaking was much acceptable, and you can see my setup on a photo on the right. You can also see, that I used 2.8 aperture, to just get as fast as an exposure as possible.

Btw. I have to say, each time I return to Budapest, it looks better and better. During the last months, they finished the area around the Parliament, which just looks so better now, the new metro line, which came very handy during my trip, the square in front of the train station, and much, much more. They really are on a roll now :)

This is a blend from 4 exposures, created only in Photoshop.