There is quite a strange monument right next to the Elisabeth bridge in Budapest. I think they added it when they reconstructed the whole area. I could not find what exactly it is, and what the numbers should represent. But still, it’s interesting for a minimalistic B/W photo.

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Technique: Photoshop edit, Number of exposures: 1, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 34mm, Aperture: 10, Middle exposure time: 1/50s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 47.491880, 19.052907

This is one of the new areas of the Buda castle in Budapest. As I mentioned sometime before, it really gives quite a few new areas to shoot from. And this is one of them, this very long stairs going from the castle down to the city. All the way, giving you a great view of the city center.

This is a HDR from 3 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Oloneo Photoengine, Number of exposures: 3, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8, Focal length: 21mm, Aperture: 8, Middle exposure time: 8s, ISO: 120, Tripod used: yes, Location: 47.495165, 19.041546

Let’s continue with another shot from Budapest. This is a bit different composition with one of the four lions on the Chain bridge. Here I zoomed in a little more, to just get the lion and the Hungarian Parliament in the shot. It took few tries to get it without any people (as they like to stop exactly at this spot to take photos of the lion and the parliament) and to not have any traffic in the shot. I actually could have also gone without the light trails, but in the end I decided to keep them there. The corner looked to boring without them :)

This is a HDR from 3 exposure, created in Oloneo Photoengine and finished in Photoshop. I actually also used the technique that I shown you yesterday, and I expanded the sky a little above the lions head.

Technique: Oloneo Photoengine, Number of exposures: 3, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 24-70mm F2.8, Focal length: 70mm, Aperture: 11, Middle exposure time: 5s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 47.498434, 19.041125

One of the rules in composition, which I think one should follow, is to let the subject space to breath. In that I mean, that if you have your subject, don’t let it touch the edge of the photo. Rather zoom out or move a little back, and leave a little space around the subject.

Especially, if you do landscapes as I do, it’s easy to have the subject (bridge, building) touching the edge of the photo, just because you don’t have a wide enough lens, or you just can’t move further back. It most often happens on top, as when you shoot, and don’t want to have a perspective distortion, you just can’t tilt you camera up.

But thanks to Photoshop, you can correct this very easily and very quickly. And since I used this on the photo I posted yesterday, today I will show you how to do it in few steps.

1. So let’s look at this photo. I liked the composition, but the top part was very tight, with the lamp almost touching the edge. And this is what needs to be corrected.
2. To start, we need to expand the canvas of the photo first. Choose the crop tool, with no ratio entered, than click on the top center of the border, and drag it up. When you have enough, let go and confirm with Enter.

3. Now choose the wand tool, and select the new created area.
4. As we want the fill, we will add here to blend nicely, we need to expand the selection a little, so it overlaps the photo. Choose Select/Modify/Expand and choose a value of around 1-3 pixels. This will grow the selection.

5. Now we need to fill this area. Hit Shift + Backspace to open the Fill dialog. Here chose the Content-Aware fill and hit OK. After few seconds (can be minutes on slower systems) the area will be filled with the sky.
6. And thats it. This small change makes the photo better, with the subject no longer being suffocated by the photos border.

This of course works best if you are just filling in a clear blue or black sky. But the Content aware fill can crate also very nice clouds and other objects, so you can experiment even on photos that are not as easy as this one.

You can also think about this already when taking the photo. Instead of trying to include more sky, just include more of the scenery, and just add the sky later in Photoshop. I will looks almost exactly the same as if you would capture it in the camera.

So today I got home from Budapest, even if it was with a bit of complications (if you follow the news, you know why), but now I’m home and can get back to what I do, editing photos.

For today, I have for you a photo of the Liberty bridge, taken right as the sun was hiding behind the hills surrounding the city. As it was very very hot in the recent months, the Danube level is quite low, so there is even grass between the rocks, that are normally covered by water. This of course gives the possibility to get really low under the bridge and so get new vantage points for shots. I also used a 10 stop ND filter here, to soften the water of the Danube. I actually had quite luck, as normally there is always a ship passing by, but somehow, for a few minutes, there was nothing there.

This is a HDR from 3 exposures, crated in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

Technique: Oloneo Photoengine, Number of exposures: 3, Camera Model: Sony a7R + Metabones MkIII Adapter, Lens: Canon 16-35mm F2.8 + HOYA ND400 filter, Focal length: 16mm, Aperture: 11, Middle exposure time: 10s, ISO: 100, Tripod used: yes, Location: 47.486555, 19.056181