Budapest center

Here goes another one of my huge panoramas. This one is of the Budapest center, as seen with a long lens from the top of the Citadel hill.

The Danube in Budapest is quite busy in the evening, as all the visitors want to see the parliament light from the river. Normally I don’t like them in my photos, but here, I think they add more to the life of the photo. What do you think?

I used three shots for the panorama, with each one being from three exposures. I used PTgui to create the blend planes and then created a HDR in Oloneo Photoengine. Then I put all together in Photoshop.

And here are few details:

Vernazza – over the city spot 1

This is probably the most popular spot in Vernazza. It gives nice view of the town and you will see some photographers here almost always. It takes a bit of waking up the stairs from the town, but it’s not that bad. If you wan’t to do sunset from here, I would go a bit earlier, as it get’s full quickly.

Vernazza – over the city spot 2

This spot gives a quite similar view to the previous one. But there is one big difference. If you look at the tower in the city, it does not reach through the horizon in the back here. I find the way it breaks the horizon line very annoying, so I prefer this spot. This is only about 5 minutes walk up the stairs from the previous one.

Vernazza – on the path spot 1

This is the first spot that’s on the hiking path. But if you go here for the sunrise or sunset, the path is open and you don’t have to pay. The view from the side of the city is great and most photographers go to the bit further spot so it’s not so full here.

Vernazza – on the path spot 2

This is the more popular spot. You will see a railing with a lot of photographer here. In front of the railing there is a spot with quite better view, but one should not go there as it is dangerous. But everyone is responsible for their own actions, so do what you think is best.

Vernazza – down by the rocks

If you don’t just want views from above the city, I would suggest going down to the rocks. Makes for a great long exposure spot. The view of the city is also nice, I just got noghting as it was crazy sunny the day I was there, and that made for horrible photos.

Manarola – opposite the town

Let’s move from Vernazza to Manarola. The best view here is from the walkway opposite the town. You can either stay lower on the walkway, or go a bit higher, to the top of it, where is a small park. Again, if you want to go there, go a bit earlier, as it’s quite a popular spot with photographers. There photos are from the higher spot.

Some also go down onto the rocks, but that’s a more dangerous location. Again, use caution if you want to go there, and you are there at your own risk.

Riomaggiore- down by the rocks

Another very popular spot. Not just for photographers. There will be many people here around sunset and you will be lucky when you get a spot at all. Don’t forget to take good shoes, as the rocks are a bit slippery. It get’s better later, as most of the people leave once the sun goes down.

Monterosso – view of the beach

Monterosso is a bit stretched out, but my favorite view was from the side, seeing the beach together with the ship and mountains in the background. This location is easy to access, just walk along the sea. Here you can even go completely down to the rock, and have a nice foreground. I don’t have one as the area was occupied with people, but you maybe have more luck :)

Monterosso – behind the tower

There is a little platform here with quite a nice view. If you look right, you will see a similar view as the one in the spot before. But if you look straight, you get this nice view of this tower surrounded by the sea.

Corniglia – side view

The last but not least, Corniglia. This town is on top of a hill, so be ready to walk up many, many and even more steps, or take the bus :) My favorite view here is from the side of the town, but since you don’t see the sea as much, it’s not as spectacular as the other ones.

Early morning in Zadar

But of course I also took few photos. Not that many, as the hot, a bit hazy, weather is not really that great for it. And of course the town was full of other people enjoying their vacation, so the center of the town was just crazy full most of the time.

So one day I somehow managed to get up before the sunset to take few shots. And here is a vertorama taken around 5 in the morning. During the day, this area was just full of people and even at 5am I was there not alone. This is the Zadar Catherdral right in the city center, and yes, you can go up the tower. I did so and will share a photo from there soon :)

This is a two shot vertorama, with a third shot used to brighten few areas. Combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop.

Flying over the Dubai Marina

While I was in Dubai earlier this year, one of the things I did was to take a tandem flight over the Dubai Marina. It’s only around half an hour, but the the experience is wonderful. The new view you get is just spectacular.

So I took this photo while sitting in a second paramotor and being very high up. For me this was the first time I had an experience like this. For a moment I though it will be scary, to just go up in a thing like this. But luckily, I don’t fear heights and I could enjoy the flight fully. If you can and are not scared I would suggest trying it. When I go back to Dubai again, I will go again for sure :)

I have a lot of photo from this flight, and I don’t like them that much. I used the 16-35 lens, and I’m not sure what happened, but most photo are out of focus. will have to redo it.

This is a single photo, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop

Using content aware

Content aware tool is great for areas of single color or areas with smaller repeating details. So for a sky, wall, water, forest in the distance and similar, it creates some great results. It’s really not great for very detailed objects, where the details change.

Here it works best on the sky, water, and the mountain in the distance. Just choose any selection tool, select the are a little bigger than you need and then choose Edit/Fill (Shift + Backspace) and choose Content Aware from the drop-down selection and confirm.

You usually get god results, but sometime one need to select the transition area again and repeat.

Using clone stamp tool

The clone stamp tool is the best on repeating patterns. You can also use it on single color areas and similar, but that’s usually simpler to do with content aware. Again, it’s not really that great for detailed object like bushes for instance, where you will never match the objects exactly.

To use it, just choose the clone stamp tool from the toolbar on the left, hold down alt and click on the source location that you want to copy, and then paint in the missing ares. I personally prefer to do this on a separate layer, as that makes it easier to go back or blend only parts of the correction.

Be careful when using it not to create visible repetition (if there should not be one).

Warping parts of the image

If nothing works, you can try warping the image. By this I mean selecting a part of the photo, next to the missing area, and stretching it around to fill the missing spot.

You have to be careful not to stretch any straight lines or objects, as that is very noticeable. This works best on organic things, like bushes, water, clouds and similar.

What you do, is to create a rectangular selection around the area. You go a bit wider than you need. Than you choose Edit/Transform/Warp (or hit Ctrl+T, then right click on the selection and choose Warp). Now choose the corner or the middle point (base on where the selection is) and drag it outside the photo.

Don’t over do it. Once a hole start’s appearing between the selection and the rest of the image, it’s too much. In this case, undo what you did, and do it again but in parts. Drag the point a bit. Confirm. Create new selection and repeat. Piece by piece you will fill in the spot.

Once you are done, sometimes you get a very noticeable distortion inside. In that case, reselects it, go into warp, choose a spot inside and drag it towards the distortion. What you want to do, is to get the distortion over a bigger area, so it’s not so visible.

How this photo ended

And that’s it for this guide. Hope it’s understandable and if not, feel free to ask :) I wanted to show you this photo finished with all the edits, but I never did this one, I did one taken right after it, so I will share that one here :)