And we have another Monday here, so another processing post. But before I start, I would like to remind you that tomorrow is the last day to join my video tutorial giveaway. Don’t forget to do that if you haven’t done so yet :)

But let’s get back to the photo. For today I chosen this blue hour photo of the Charles bridge in Prague. Of course the Charles bridge is always busy, but from this square, right next to it, it does not looks to that much. So let’s take a lot at the final ant the original 0EV exposure first.

 
As you can see on the original one, it really lacks a proper white balance, contrast, and some spots are too dark or too bright. So I started the same way as I always do. Loaded all the photos into Lightroom for first tweaks.

 
On the tweaked image you can see what everything I changed. I corrected the horizon and white ballance. I applied the lens correction and removed chromatic abberations. I then exported all the layers into Photoshop and continued from there (layers numbered from bottom up)

1. 0EV exposure
2. -1EV exposure from which I darkened the bright spots of the photo
3. -2EV exposure to darken them even more
4. +2EV exposure to brighten the foreground area and the bridge

This finished the blending stage, as you can see on this screenshot.

 

5. merged layer, with motion blue applied to it from which I masked the water, giving it a more softer feel
6. added more contrast to the midtones of the photo
7+8. added glow to the photo (check out my tutorial on how to do it)
9. Color Efex Pro contrast filter, to get more local contrast in the photo
10. Added more structure using the high pass filter
11. Brightened the darkest areas a little
12. Added a little bit of overall contrast

 
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:

The Grand Mosque is really beautiful from outside, and also from inside. It’s quite strange walking around without any shoes one, but the carpet insides is not just beautiful, but also very comfortable. I have to give them also big thumbs up for allowing tripods, even inside :) Something a lot of other places can learn from.

This is a HDR from 5 exposures, created in Oloneo Photoengine, finished in Photoshop. I’m not completely sure about the colors here. As I was there late in the evening, there ware already light on outside, inside and also the decorative neon lights. This mix of different light, cold and warm at the same time, is really not so great when on tries to capture what one saw. At least the details look great :)

While on the subject of page updates. Another section that I planed to update for a long time, was My abstract art page. Actually I plan to update a lot of parts of the blog, in the ever-going attempt to make the page better and more interesting :)

As for this update, the My abstract art page was a little boring, as it was only a gallery of my older works, I used to create in Photoshop. So I thought about how to make it more interesting, and in the end I changed it to include a description on how I started with Photoshop, where and how I learned the basics. This could maybe help (or inspire) some of you who are just starting :)

So head over to the My abstract art & How I started with Photoshop page.

Btw. to see all the pages of this blog, just scroll down to the menu in the right sidebar.

As I mentioned, I continually keep updating the page, and this time it was time to update the My Gear section (as it haven’t been updated for at least a year :)). So I finally added all the new toys I accumulated in the last year, and also added few thoughts to every single one.

So if you are curious what I use, head over to the My gear page. And here is a behind the scenes shot, taken some time ago at one of the photo-shoots.

Master exposure blending – raffle

Just a reminder, that you can still join my raffle, where I’m giving away two copies of my Master Exposure blending video tutorial. You can join the raffle here.

Notre Dame in the rain

I spend another day just tweaking the blog and adding content to it. So if you notice some new pages here and there, that’s normal :) But still there is so much more I want to change and add.  A blog is like a living thing. It has to evolve and maybe even mutate. It’s never finished. But I’m very glad that more and more people visit the blog, even if it’s currently less than it was in winter. But I noticed that every year. Probably during the cold months, people spend more time at a computer, probably :)

But to the photo I’m sharing today. It’s one from my last years trip to Paris, taken during a very rainy evening by the Notre Dame. It’s a HDR created from 5 exposures in Oloneo Photoengine, and then blended with original photos in Photoshop.