Photoshop Technique

Antelope Canyon – Ghost Beam

 Antelope Canyon, Colorado Plateau, Desert, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Navajo Lands, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Slot Canyon, Slot Canyon Photography, Sony α900  2 Responses »
Aug 082010
 

Ghost Beam, Upper Antelope Canyon, Navajo Lands, Arizona. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Sony SAL 20mm lens. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1.5 seconds.

Hi everyone. Just back from some needed time off away from photography and the office. I am continuing to work through some of the light beam shots from my last trip and so todays post, entitled Ghost Beam, is a continuation of this work. This image was shot in Upper Antelope Canyon and features one massive beam of light and a more subtle beam just visible in the back chamber on the left. As with all my light beam shots I captured multiple exposures but settled on this image because I liked the wavy ghost like character of the light. In order to resolve a couple of exposure issues typical with these shots the RAW file was processed twice in Lightroom to open up the shadows through an increase in fill and another file to reclaim some of the highlights in the beam and the canyon roof at the top of the image. The two files were blended in PS. I like to open up my shadows in slot canyon shots because it helps to define the forms. Too many shots like this suffer because the shadows are clipped and over power the resulting shot. This of course is a personal preference in the way I process images but I simply want open shadows. I also do not want my highlights clipped but in this type of shot it is inevitable as the hot light is far beyond what the sensor can capture. This is one of the reasons that a shot like this is best composed from a lower angle as it tends to flatten out the hot highlight areas where the beam hits the floor and allows you to capture the upper sections of the canyon where the beam enters the chamber.

The file followed my usual workflow including curve adjustments through luminosity masks, contrast masks, color correction, and dodge and burn and color burn.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Toadstool Hoodoo – Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, HDR Processed with Unified Color’s HDR Expose

 Colorado Plateau, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, High Dynamic Range, Hoodoo, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Sony α900, Utah  No Responses »
Aug 042010
 

Toadstool Hoodoo, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Sony 20mm lens. Image is an HDR blend from three exposures all shot at f16 at 1/2 stop intervals.

Hi everyone. I will be gone for the next few days and have been diligently trying to get this image prepared for today’s posting. Generally speaking I am not a proponent of most HDR processing primarily because I do not like the over-processed look common to many of these images. But I am intrigued by the possibilities of using the software to to accentuate the shot through blending of several exposures. I had the opportunity to secure a copy of Unified Color’s HDR Expose software to make some test images. This image, from the Toadstool Hoodoo’s in Grand Staircase-Escalante, was processed through the HDR Expose software and is a composite from three separate exposures.

I found the software to be very easy to understand and you can see the changes happen almost immediately. The three files for this image received some initial processing in LR before being transferred to HR Expose. Transferring is very easy with a drag and drop of the RAW files into the HDR Expose window. This automatically launches the merge function. And here is the really nice part. Once the software has crunched the numbers the resulting image is not that “wacked out” non-tone mapped image you get from other software. For all intents and purposes it looks just like a flat RAW file prior to image enhancement. The software gives you a great suite of slider based controls to adjust Brightness/Contrast, Shadow/Highlight, Sharpness, Saturation, White Balance, Fine Color Tuning, Dynamic Range Mapping, and Veiling Glare. The Veiling Glare tool can help remove some of the atmospheric haze associated with many merged HDR images. It essentially helps to add contrast and detail back into the image.

Toadstool Hoodoo after merging in the HDR Expose Software and prior to final processing in Photoshop.

Learning the controls takes some time but there is a great manual that explains most of the steps, tools, and processes along with some video instruction through the website. The video instruction is better at explaining the various tools within the program. The program is easy to use and I think the results are great. It blends well into my own workflow and the merged files can be exported in a variety of formats including tiff, jpg, bitmap and the softwares’s BEF format. The software supports a full range of Camera RAW formats and the program supports color managed files. This image was exported to Photoshop as a 16 bit, Profoto RGB, tiff file.

The exported files have none of the usual color shift problems associated with HDR images.  32 bit image editing with full fidelity is possible without having to resample the image to 8 or 16 bits. Additionally there are plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop that support the native BEF file format.

I really like the possibilities with this software and it supports my vision and workflow methodology. I am only beginning to tap into the power of this program. The processing of the final file was complex and involved quite a few luminosity layer/curve masks, color adjustments, dodging and burning and color burning. The last bit of sunlight striking the hoodoo was fleeting and gone within a few minutes of setting up for this shot. I wanted to capture the luminous glow I saw that evening and I think the HDR blend helped in achieving the final image.

Its quite a departure for me to process an image this way but I do like results. Is it a little over done? Maybe so but I like the fact that I could really pull out the details in the hoodoo and rocks and hold on to the glow. What do you think? Drop me a note and let me know. I will continue to work with this program to get a better understanding of the controls and see what else I can achieve. To find out more about HDR Expose visit the Unified Color website.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Toadstool Hoodoos – Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

 Colorado Plateau, Grand Circle, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Photoshop Technique, Sony α900, Utah  No Responses »
Jul 272010
 

Entrada Toadstool, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 28mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1/30th of a second.

Hi everyone. Welcome to today’s posting. I am going to talk about several things in this post relating to how I shot and processed this image. First a little background. This shot was made in an area called the Toadstools in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The area features a wild landscape of red Navajo formations and white Entrada formations. The white toadstools are hidden in a small side canyon and receive afternoon light. Littered all around the site are dark Dakota Formation rocks and caprocks that sit on top of the toadstools. Sunlight bouncing off the white Entrada surfaces is intense so it is best to wait until the late afternoon and a lower sun angle to shoot in this area. I made quite a few shots around the canyon but I kept gravitating to this amazing Dakota Rock. I loved the color and textures. I spent some time just trying to compose a shot and as I moved around I was able to focus in on a composition with the rock and the toadstool against the canyon wall. In this composition I wanted to capture the implied leading line of darker rocks beginning at the left corner and leading up to the toadstool with the caprock. There are actually two leading lines here; the line of the foreground rocks and the diagonal line formed by the wedge of light leading to the toadstool. To make this work I wanted to achieve sharp focus in the shot all the way from foreground to background.

The final processed image is a merge of three exposures, all with the same exposure, but each with a slightly different focus point, and combined in Helicon Focus software. The focus points were the foreground rock, the group of rocks in the middle, and the toadstool in the background. The three RAW files were processed with the same settings in Lightroom and placed in the Helicon program where the software magically crunched the numbers and blended the files into one critically sharp image. It was saved out as a .psd file for final work in Photoshop.

Entrada Toadstool RAW image before processing in Photoshop.

The image above is the merged RAW file before applying the various layers and adjustments. When comparing the two shots I think it is pretty easy to see the differences between the files. The RAW file lacks the contrast, punch, and color of the final image. But buried within the RAW file is the image I envisioned. It is only a matter of laying out a plan of action to bring out the details. I have outlined four areas within the image that I focused on in processing the shot.

Area 1: In order to make the toadstool standout I would need to darken the canyon wall. This would achieve separation and actually make the toadstool look brighter.

Area 2: This wedge of highlight would need to be knocked back. It was too bright compared to the rest of the tones in the scene. In addition the line of rocks were to hot and also needed to be toned back just a bit for better balance.

Area 3: The left hand fin of sandstone would also need to be toned back to help in framing the toadstool.

Area 4: The foreground rock is one of the most important features and along with the small grouping of rocks to the left form the beginning of the line that leads the eye up and around to the toadstool in the back of the canyon.

So these four areas were the starting point. I want to point out that before you start working on any image it is a good idea to study it and create a plan for how you want to process the shot. What is your vision for the image. What story are you trying to tell. What are the important details about the image that you want emphasize. Look closely at the shadows and highlights, the color tones within the image, and the contrast. Map out a plan and begin first with your global adjustment for shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. This might include setting a white and black point. Each of these adjustments should be made through curve layers. From there move to more localized adjustments. I always have a dodge and burn layer followed by my color correction layers and if necessary a color burn layer. I also apply a mid-tone contrast layer. I have spoken about this before and it is an important step to pop the contrast within the mid-tones. It is basically a highpass sharpen filter appled to a certain tonal range. The screen shot below shows the number of layers I used to process this shot. I employed a number of Luminosity Masks for shadows, mid-tones and brights followed by more focused adjustment for the background, the fin, and the foreground rock. These are indicated in the “A” set. The “B” shows my Mid-tone Contrast layer and Dodge and Burn. The “C” set is the localized color adjustments.

Everything is accomplished in layers and the file is saved as a layered PSD file. This gives you the most flexibility and allows you to come back and make or change your adjustments. Often when you make your first test prints you will see things that need to be changed and it is easy to go back into the layered file to do this.

Two critical steps I want to point out are the Dodge and Burn and the Color Burn layers. These are powerful, often overlooked, adjustments that can really make an image pop. In my darkroom days I used D+B as a way to lighten and darken values within my black and white prints. It is no different in the digital darkroom today. It is a subtle, painterly process that can impart a remarkable depth to an image. Color burn is another powerful layer where you can bring back color to certain areas within the image. Color burn when used in conjunction with D+B can help you bring out the glow. To see the effect compare and contrast the foreground rock in the RAW file with the final image.

Entrada Toadstool adjustment layers in Photoshop.

As always I want to thank everybody for stopping by today. I covered quite a few items in this one shot. If you have any comments or questions just drop me a note in the comments section. I am always happy to tell you what I did to an image. We are all on a photography journey together and we can only grow by sharing our knowledge.

Bob

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Coneflowers – Lensbaby Photography

 Flower Photography, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Lensbaby, Lensbaby Photograph, Lensbaby Photography, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Sony α900, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 192010
 

Image 1: Coneflowers - Final Image Processed in Photoshop. Image shot with a Sony α900 and a Lensbaby Composer at f4.0 at 1/250 of a second.

Hi everyone. I thought I would leave the slot canyons for awhile and post another Lensbaby image from my garden flower series. I am showing three stages in this image; the RAW capture, the Lightroom processed image, and the final composition completed in Photoshop. The image was shot in the early morning with the sun rising just off the image’s right hand side. The beautiful sidelight gave the flowers some nice illumination and added depth to the shot. The image was shot hand held with the focus on the two flowers in the center of the image. I used the f4.0 insert on my Lensbaby Composer and the camera white balance was set to 5200K. I composed the shot in a way that would give me cropping room for the final composition. The quality of light is what makes the shot beautiful but it also contributed to an exposure issue-that of balancing the white of the petals with the shadowed areas within the green leaves. Watching the histogram and the “blinkies” I had to clip the white highlights and the shadows just a fraction which pushed the majority of the mid-tones just to the left. I knew I could recover these in the RAW processor. Not optimum but pushing the histogram more to the right would have seriously clipped the highlights and I may not have been able to recover them.

Image 2, below shows the RAW file before processing. Not too bad but it can certainly be improved, especially in the shadows and mid-tones. And while I do like the hint of magenta colors in the top I thought the overall image could be improved by cropping in to eliminate some of the darker parts at the bottom of the shot. In looking at the image, right away I loved the quality of the light. The coneflowers really stood out and I liked the light striking the vertical stems which added a nice dynamic line that played against the curve of the flowers. With all that in mind my plan was to crop in on the shot and bring out the mid-tones for more depth. I also needed to recover a small bit of the highlights in the petal and add just a bit of fill recovery for the clipped shadows.

Image 2: Coneflowers, RAW capture before processing.

Image 3: below shows the image as processed in Lightroom before exporting to Photoshops. Here you can see the subtle recovery of highlights and shadows and the final crop. Additionally some small adjustments were made in the overall color with the sliders. Not a lot however as I prefer to use the selective color controls in Photoshop for final tweaking.

Image 3: Coneflowes, image after processing in Lightroom.

So lets take a look at all three images side by side: The first image is the RAW file, the second image is the Lightroom File, and the third image is the final Photoshop File. The results at first glance may appear subtle. The overall crop helped to eliminate the dark dead space at the bottom of the shot. But keep in mind that I shot this with an eye towards cropping in on the flowers. The Lensbaby Composer is not a zoom lens and though I might have moved in to the shot just a bit it would have altered the focus point. The second image also shows the slight recovery of the shadows with the Fill Slider and the highlights on the petals through the Recovery Slider. The third image is the final rendering from Photoshop. Here the shadows and mid-tones have been adjusted through a luminosity curve mask.

The shot below shows a screen capture of the layers I used in Photoshop. The Background Layer was duplicated and a Gaussian Blur at a 20 pixel radius was made. Though the Lensbaby at the f4.0 aperture insert already produces a nice selective focus blur I wanted to add just a bit more. From there, three separate luminosity curve masks were made for the mid-tones and shadows. The luminosity masks isolate certain tonal and value ranges in the image and from there I apply the curve adjustments through the mask. I won’t go into how these are made but if you are interested please visit Tony Kuyper’s website where you can download his tutorial’s on the masks. They are an excellent way to apply curve adjustments to a targeted tonal range. After the curves I applied a mid-tone contrast mask and then added my Dodge and Burn, Color Balance, and a Final Color Layer. This is a fairly typical Layer Stack for my work. I always do global curve work first followed by selective adjustments. I almost always use a Dodge and Burn Layer. This is an Overlay Layer with a 50% Grey Fill set to an opacity of 66%. You can paint on the mask using the Brush set to a large feathered radius. Painting with Black darkens and painting with white lightens. You should set the Brush to a low opacity and build up the effect.

Coneflower Photoshop Layers

Well, this was quite a bit to go through. Hopefully you followed along and got a glimpse of how I process some of my shots. If you have any questions or comments just drop me a note. Thanks for stopping by today.

Bob

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Antelope Canyon – Inner Glow

 Antelope Canyon, Arizona, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Navajo Lands, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Slot Canyon, Sony α900, Upper Antelope Canyon  No Responses »
Jul 182010
 

Inner Glow, Lower Antelope CAnyon. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Sony SAL 20mm lens. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f13 for 0.8 of a second.

Hi everyone. Todays image is called Inner Glow and it was shot in Lower Antelope Canyon. The image was exposed in tungsten white balance which is an effective technique when shooting in varied light conditions where warm light and cool shadows meet. Warmer light bouncing in the upper part of the canyon fails to penetrate into the shadows creating the opportunity for a composition with a complimentary color palette. The camera was placed in the deep shadows and set to 3200K WB. This renders the shadows a cool blue while maintaining most of the warmth in the orange glow. The exposure was processed twice; once the for tungsten balance and a second time with a warmer 5000K balance. The two files were blended in Photoshop by painting through a layer mask.

This is my 100th posting since beginning the blog last year. It has been an amazing journey and I have received many great comments from all my visitors. As I move forward I hope to improve the content and continue to feature images from my many travels. I thank all of you for your continued support of the site.

Bob

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Antelope Canyon – Monument Valley Glow No. 2

 Antelope Canyon, Arizona, Desert, Grand Circle, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Slot Canyon, Sony α900, Upper Antelope Canyon, Zeiss Lenses  No Responses »
Jun 272010
 

Upper Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley Glow No. 2. Shot with a Sony a900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 40mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f13 for 4 seconds.

Hi everyone. As promised I was able to work on the tungsten version of the Monument Valley Glow shot. This image was shot with a white balance of 3000 k and it rendered most of the shadow areas in a blue or purple blue. The hot light areas were toned down a bit towards the magenta range. My plan in processing this shot was to accentuate the shadows and bring back the warmer colors towards the center of the image. To do this I merged the tungsten shot with the warmer shot and brought back the warm colors in the center of the image. The result is a richer interpretation where the blue/purple shadows give way to a more magenta/red mid-tone and finally to the hotter yellows and reds in the center. This helps frame the main subject and also provides a way of leading the eye into the shot. I think both shots are successful but I tend to like this version better. So what do you think? Post your comments and let me know.

Thanks for stopping by today. I will be gone for a week but hopefully will return with shots of the light beams in Antelope.

Bob

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South Rim Vista-Grand Canyon

 Arizona, Grand Canyon, Landscape, Landscape Photography, Photoshop Sharpening, Photoshop Technique, Photoshop Workflow, Singh-Ray Filters, Uncategorized  7 Responses »
Feb 112010
 

Morning on the South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 40mm. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 2 seconds.

This image was taken along Hermits Rest Road near Mohave Point Overlook. The large foreground formation is known as the Alligator. The pinnacle on the right is the Tower of Set. This image was shot around 8:15 in the morning. A beautiful subtle light was illuminating the North Rim buttes and providing a nice fill light into the canyon. I used a Singh-Ray 3-stop split neutral density filter to balance out a bit of the contrast difference and to allow more exposure for the inner canyon. Even at this relatively late hour of the morning the shot required a 2 second exposure.

In Lightroom I opened up the exposure about 1/3 of a stop and added a bit of fill light and black with the sliders. The red, blue, and magenta color sliders were used to tweak out some tones and capture sharpening was applied. Post processing in Photoshop employed a Find Edges, Surface Mask Sharpening Layer; curve adjustments to the foreground, midground, North Rim, and sky; a saturation adjustment for red and magenta; a Midtone Contrast mask; and a dodge and burn layer. I almost always set my curve adjustment layers to Luminosity Mode to avoid increased color saturation that occurs when applied in Normal Blending Mode. I prefer to apply color saturation through adjustment layers. If I had not done this the large foreground butte would have been over powering and out of balance with the other colors and image contrast.

A note about the High Pass Sharpening and the Midtone Contrast Layers. In addition to Capture Sharpening from the RAW processor I do employ several sharpening passes over the adjustment range of the image. I generally will start with a High Pass sharpen right out of the gate. Why you may ask. Simply because the process of sharpening is essentially an adjustment of image contrast. You can check this out for yourself by turning on and off a sharpening layer and notice how the images lights and darks change. I don’t leave sharpening to the end as it will affect the contrast. Subtle maybe, but it will. So I sharpen, make curve adjustments, and then sharpen again. Each time I am tweaking out the image. The Midtone Contrast layer is essentially a High Pass filter applied to the image through the Merge Layers Command. This is generally done in Soft Light Blending Mode and the Blend If sliders are adjusted for the midtone areas of the image. This is as far as I go if I am only going to put the image into the blog or my website. For a print I will apply one more sharpening round.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bob

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Snowpocalypse 2010

 Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, West Virginia, Winter  No Responses »
Feb 062010
 

Blizzard February 5, 2010. Sony a900 and Zeiss 24-70mm lens. Image exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 1 second.

The second major storm this winter has passed and we are left to dig out of 30+ inches of snow. As the storm was moving in I decided to have a little fun. Now you may be wondering if I am behind the wheel of my car. And the answer would be yes. But no I am not driving. What kind of example would I be setting. In fact I saw the line of cars coming and stopped to take this image. To get the motion blur I started with the lens zoomed at 70mm and pulled back to wide, somewhere around 35mm. Exposure was 1 second at f16.

The RAW file was processed in Lightroom and taken over to Photoshop. To bring out some depth I used a contrast mask which works well for these kinds of shots. To make the mask duplicate the Background. From there choose Highpass Filter. Set the amount to 70 +/- and the layer blend to Softlight. Its subtle but helps bring out some of the darks and gives it more apparent depth.

Bob

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Waikiki Twilight Redux-Photoshop Layer Blend

 Architecture, City Photography, Hawaii, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique  No Responses »
Feb 052010
 

Image 3: Waikiki Twilight Redux. Photoshop blend technique of two exposures.

A few days ago I posted a twilight image shot in Waikiki Beach in downtown Honolulu. You can refer back to that image which was posted on January 29th for comparison to todays post. The January post was quickly processed in Lightroom and Photoshop on my laptop and posted for the blog. Todays post takes the same image and shows a simple and quick method to extend the image dynamic range. Image 1 shows the original Sony RAW file. This image was exposed at ISO 100 at f16 for 60 seconds. In Lightroom I made a virtual copy of this file. In the original file I opened up the image by +.50 of a stop an used the fill and recover sliders to slightly open up the image. It also received a bit of capture sharpening. In the Virtual image I opened up the exposure by +1.80 stops and used the fill and recover sliders. The goal here was to bring out more detail in the buildings and the trees surrounding the hotels. Image 1 shows the original RAW file and Image 2 shows the Virtual copy after Lightroom processing. Each file was then exported to Photoshop. The Original was named with “D” for dark and the Virtual was named with an “L” for light. The next steps are performed in Photoshop.

Image 1: Original RAW file processed in Lightroom.

Image 2: Virtual Light image processed in Lightroom.

Step 1: Open the Virtual Light copy in Photoshop. Duplicate the Background and name it Light Layer.

Step 2: Open the Original Dark copy. Select the image and hit Command C to copy it to the paste board.

Step 3: Go back to the Virtual Light copy, make sure the Light Layer is selected and hit Command V to paste the Dark copy into the layer stack. Rename this as Dark Layer. Make sure the Dark Layer is on top of the layer stack.

Step 4: Now comes the mysterious magic of Photoshop. Make sure you select the Dark Layer and hit Option-Command 2. In a few moments you will see the Marching Ants. With the Marching Ants active select Add Layer Mask. Photoshop will create a perfectly blended Black and White Mask linked to the Dark Layer. Select the mask and go to Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the amount to between 3.0 and 6.0 for high res images. For this file I set it to 5.0. Note: You must do the Gaussian Blur otherwise the effect will appear overdone.

Step 5: Make sure the Mask is selected. Go to the Brush and set it for soft edge, around 200 is good, and the amount to 10 to 15%. Select the background color as White. You can now paint on the mask. Remember that when painting into layers that white reveals and black hides. Painting in White on the black and white mask will reveal the Dark Layer. You want to keep the Brush amount low so you can build up the darkening effect. If you go overboard you can select Black and paint back into the mask. If you look at the original post from January 29 you will see the trees are very dark and the buildings did not quite have the sparkle I was looking for. Though not bad for a quick post it certainly was not what the image could be. The final result achieved through the layer blend really increases the dynamic range of the image.

Step 6: Once you are satisfied with the blending flatten the image and from there you can go through your normal Photoshop editing and processing routines. In this case I performed a high pass, edge mask sharpen, several curves adjustments and a mid-tone contrast layer for some added pop.

The end result shows a marked improvement in the image. There is detail in the trees surrounding the hotels and the buildings are more luminous. The HDR folks out there may of course scoff at this technique but I am not a fan of some of the over processed HDR images I see and prefer this simple method for blending. You can use this technique to process and blend two bracketed exposures or in this case process a single exposure. Many thanks to all who are visiting these posts and providing comments. Together we can advance our skills and find support for this great and all consuming passion.

Bob

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The Salk Institute-Classic View

 Architecture, Black and White, Photography Technique, Photoshop Technique, Salk institute, Sony α900  2 Responses »
Jan 222010
 

The classic architectural shot of the plaza at the Salk Institute in San Diego. Shot with a Sony α900 and a Zeiss 24-70mm lens at 24mm. Image exposed at ISO 200 at f10 for 1/320 of a second.

Todays post is from the Salk Institute outside San Diego, California. Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies more than 40 years ago. His goal was to create an institute that would serve as a “crucible for creativity” to pursue questions about the basic principles of life. He wanted biologists and others to work together to explore the wider implications of their discoveries for the future of humanity. Salk engaged architect Louis Kahn to design the facility. Their vision and partnership resulted in one the most iconic and engaging works of modern architecture.

The plaza shot is one of the iconic views of the Institute. On the day I visited there was an overcast sky tht engaged the horizon just above the Pacific Ocean. The light was relatively flat and uninspiring. I did not have a tripod or my 20mm lens. Luckily I was able to get on a bench to get a little elevation over the water feature. I carefully centered myself and used the grids in my viewfinder to maintain perspective. Even so I had to do a little correction in Photoshop.

In order to capture the loneliness and stark duality between architecture, sea, and sky I used a neat blending technique in Photoshop. After RAW development I brought the image into Photoshop. From there I duplicated the background and set the blending mode to multiply. This introduced more contrast into the shot. I added a Black and White adjustment layer and used the sliders to to further accentuate some of the details. Final touches were achieved with a curves layer and a Mid Tone Contrast Layer set to Soft Light. This is a powerful work of architecture and to stand and look out into the infinity of ocean and sky was a special treat.

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