Not that I really like going to the beach, but as I was staying close to it in the Dubai Marina, I went there for a moment. And it was hot as hell, so exactly like I thought. And as you can see from the photo, also not the best time for photography. So after taking few photos, I returned to doing what I do mostly during the day when traveling. Sleeping. That’s actually quite normal for me. I go out for the sunrise, then go to bed and then go out again in the evening to take more photos. Especially in such hot places as Dubai, I just don’t have the will to go out during the day.

This is a single photo, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. I used a polarizing filter when taking this photo, but it didn’t help that much.

How about one more from the fireworks over Kuchajda. I actually wanted to post something different today, but as somehow I had less time today, I went with something I already had finished earlier. But will do something different tomorrow :)

This is a single image, edited in Lightroom, Oloneo Photoengine and Photoshop.

And we got to another post in my processing series. For today I have chosen a photo taken at night from the Burj Khalifa. So let’s take a look at it.

To get this final photo

I started with 4 exposures in Lightroom. I could have taken the usual 5, but as you can see, I had no need for it.

Here you can see the original 0EV exposure.

In Lightroom I corrected the horizon line, white balance, chromatic abberations, noise and tweaked a little the shadows and vibrance.

Then I exported all the exposures as 16-bit Tiff files and opened them in Oloneo Photoengine. Changing the strength and contrast, I got this result.

As you can see, it lacks a little contrast, there are reflections visible (the photo was taken through a glass wall) and some areas are still too bright. I loaded the Oloneo result and the original exposures into Photoshop, and did the following edits (layers numbered from bottom up)

1. Oloneo result
2+3. 0EV exposure, darkened by one stop with a painted mask, to remove all the ghosting from teh HDR merge
4. -1EV exposure with a painted mask, to darken the bottom center area
5. few spots darkened from the -2EV exposure
6. merged layers on which I removed the reflection visible in the sky
7. Color Efex Pro contrast to get more local contrast in the photo
8. added more overall contrast
9. added more detail, by using the high pass filter
10+11. there were few bright areas after the pro contrast filter, so I corrected those from the -1EV and -2EV exposure
12. added a little more overall contrast
13. removed the glow in the top right corner, I just didn’t like it there

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:

As I mentioned yesterday, I got some nice fireworks shots yesterday, so how about another one :) As you can see, I underestimated how high the fireworks will be, so they got a little cut off. But still the 16mm lens got a huge part of them.

Btw. if you want to know how I take fireworks photos, you can check the guide I made, or you can get the free ebook, that is available here, for all newsletter subscribers.

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

I just love taking photos of fireworks. And I just got back home from ones at the Kuchajda lake. It really is a great spot for them, as the lake is very calm, creating great reflection. Also they usually have the fireworks right at the start of the blue hour, so there is also some sky (not like the midnight ones at new years :))

I got some nice photos, so don’t be surprised if you see more of them the next week. I just forgot to change the composition in the middle of the shooting, so all photos have the same one. I just liked the fireworks so much, that I forgot to focus more on the camera.

This photo is a single exposure, edited in Oloneo Photoengine and finished in Photoshop. Looks a little more busier that I usually like my fireworks shots to be, but that a result of the longer exposure I used.