Still busy, still not at home. So again, no new photo today, but how about instead, few of my favorite photos, with my favorite subject, bridges :)

And we came to another Monday, and as every Monday, let’s take a look at the process of another photo. For today I chosen a photo taken late night, of the Burj Al Arab, with the Burj Khalifa tower in the back. So let’s start.

First, here is a look at the final and the original image. The biggest difference is the addition of much more detail and contrast. That’s what was really missing in the original exposure.

I used 4 exposures for this photo which I merged in Oloneo Photoengine. Looking back at them, I would probably got the same result just by editing the -1EV and then just blending the others as I did here, but that does not really madder. The process is not so important, and most things can be done in more than one way anyway.

So here you can see the original 4 exposures, corrected in Lightroom (chromatic abberations and lens distortions) and the result from Oloneo Photoengine (medium strength, a little contrast and natural mode)

From there I loaded everything into Photoshop and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up)
1. Oloneo Photoengine result
2. -1EV to correct the very strong lights on the buildings
3. -2EV a little more correction to the very strong light on top of the Burj Al Arab
4. +1EV to correct the top even more, as it looked strange after darkening
5. Color Efex Pro contrast, to get much more local and overall contrast in the photo.
6. -2EV once more, as the Color Efex Pro contrast created few very bright areas in the buildings.
7. Color Efex Tonal contrast, applied to the buildings in the background, to get more details and contrast in them
8+9. Added more overall contrast using curves. I could have done that only using one curves layer, but what I like to do, is to use the presets that curves have, as that gives me more even result. And when one is not enough, I just duplicate the layer.

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:

Little short on time today, so no new photo. I’m currently on my way to Budapest for few day, for a little photo-shooting, but will get back to normal posting soon :)

So for today, how about a look back at one of my videos on how to take multiple brackets with a camera.

Or better said, between the bridge, as the both sides are form the same bridge. Actually this bridge, the Triple bridge, consist’s of three separate parts, as also the name suggest.

This is one of the photos I took during my stay there last year, and as you can see, the weather was not ideal. There is a small chance that I will stop there for a day next month, so maybe then I get some photos with a little nicer weather :)

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop.

I have been slowly adding to the Top photography spots list on the blog, and right up I’m already at 6 lists. I still want to create many more, but I fist need to get many more photos (and of course many more visits to the different cities :)).

But for now, if any of you are planing to visit one, or more of these cities, these lists could be really helpful. I always try to mention if tripods are allowed or there are any problems with those, and there are few spots on the lists, where I really had problems finding this out before a trip. And I think that it’s not to hard to believe, that the Prague list, is the most visited page from the whole blog, even more visited than the HDR tutorial.