Made With Luminar: Budapest Black and White

From the Danube, I took this photo of the Liberty Statue:

ISO 400 f/8 55mm 0.2sec

I do really like the colors and light in the evening sky but I was curious to try a black and white edit:

ISO 400 f/8 55mm 0.2sec

To achieve this edit I applied the Luminar Look, Dramatic Landscapes B&W, then made additional adjustments to the whites, blacks, and shadows sliders. You can leave a comment below about this particular edit. I do think I will be making a color version eventually as well.

Cheers!

Added to Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge, Clouds.

The Made with Luminar Series

This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. I’ll then explain what other filters and edits have been applied, often mentioning what layer and therefore order that they were applied. The text of these posts include any Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks

You can assume basic edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.

What I Am Working On: Using a Mask

There are times when I am editing that I would like to apply an edit to only a certain part of a photograph. This is a file I was working on where that happened:

ISO 400 f/8 1/20sec 55mm

I did a few standard edits first and then applied a Luminar look called Blue and White. While I mostly liked the look, I wanted to remove it from the sky. Using a mask I erased the look out of the sky. When you are doing something like this, most editing software has a mask button that will show where you are working. While I was editing mine looked like this:

Shows the mask in progress

Toggling that button on and off helped me get a sense of where I was working and it can also pretty easily show if I have missed a spot. While it is not a tool I always use, I do find that it is a handy one to have.  The final edit is this:

ISO 400 f/8 1/20sec 55mm

Feel free to leave a comment below about this edit. This photo is also a response to Lens-Artists Challenge, Treasure Hunt. The photo includes the following items on the “treasure hunt” list: a sunset, a boat, and two churches, Matthias and St. Mary Magdalene.

Cheers!

What I Am Working On: Minor Edits

I took a tour last week of the Hungarian State Opera House. I had heard the interior of the building was beautiful and well worth seeing. That is correct:

ISO 1000 f/8 0.1 sec 18mm

My edits to the photo are a work in progress. At this point they include a crop, the removal or toning down of a few light reflections, and the use of a vignette placed on the column in the foreground:

ISO 1000 f/8 0.1 sec 18mm

The edit is a bit dark, and I haven’t fully decided if I am going to change that. The Opera House at that moment was very still on its upper levels, there were only people milling around where I was standing. I wanted the edit to reflect that quiet. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the edit in the comment section below.

The Opera House had its Opening Night on September 27, 1884. It is currently undergoing renovations but is still open for tours. I’ve added this post to A Photo a Week, Over 100 Years Old.

Cheers!

Wordless Wednesday: Luxembourg City

ISO 320 f/11 55mm 1/1000sec

Cheers!

Wordless Wednesday: Brugge

ISO 320 F/11 28nn 1/2000sec

Cheers!

What I Am Working On: Using the History Button

It’s fair to say that when you are editing photos, sometimes you like the potential of an earlier version of your work, and you would like to revisit it. That is when the history button can be a very useful feature of editing software. This morning I was working with this file:

ISO 250 f/11 55mm 1/15sec

I wanted to make a black and white version. After a few basic edits including a crop, white balance adjustment and luminance boosting, I added a custom look I had created in Luminar. After a few more tweaks, I had this black and white edit:

ISO 250 f/11 55mm 1/15sec

I like this edit so I saved a version of it. But is also true that at one point in the editing process, I liked another idea and I wanted to revisit it.

The other idea came at a point in the edit after I had applied my black and white look but before making the final adjustments. At that point I had experimented with the slider that adjusts the amount of the look applied to the photo. Because I was applying a black and white look to a color photo, the result was that the color version begins to show through. I ended up really liking that effect. So after I had saved my version above I went back in the history to where I had been working with that slider and started reworking the edit from that point. Here is the resulting color edit:

ISO 250 f/11 55mm 1/15sec

This ability to go back through your history and rework from a certain point can be very helpful if you are interested in creating more than one version.

Your thoughts and comments on the edits are welcome in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Added to Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge, Any Kind of Geometric Shape and Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Made With Luminar: Edinburgh

This original file was shot at an outdoor area at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and includes a view of the Castle and the set-up for the Tattoo that happens there every year in August:

ISO 800 f/18 1/640 22mm 1/640sec

I have several photos of this scene but I chose to edit this slightly underexposed image over a slightly overexposed one because there was more detail available in the sky and I was pretty confident that I could bring the underexposed parts up to an acceptable level:

ISO 800 f/18 1/640 22mm 1/640sec

I’ve applied two Luminar looks to this edit. The first is “Wonderful” which I’ve used a gradient to apply it more to the sky portion of the image than the foreground. The second is “Quay” which I set to 32%. I then applied a custom vignette.

The Tattoo is a show that is one of a kind and well worth seeing. While you are visiting Edinburgh to see that, the National Museum is a beautiful museum with a lot of interesting exhibits.

The Made with Luminar Series

This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. I’ll then explain what other filters and edits have been applied, often mentioning what layer and therefore order that they were applied. The text of these posts includes any Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks

You can assume basic edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.

Added to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Capital.

Wordless Wednesday: Yellow Snowdrops

ISO 250 f/11 50mm 1/25sec

Added to One Word Sunday, Symmetry.

Cheers!

Made With Luminar: South West Coast Path

This photo was taken on the South West Coast Path:

ISO 400 f/11 18mm 1/800 sec

For the edit I’ve applied the Luminar look, Retro Film, but then brushed that look out of the sky:

ISO 400 f/11 18mm 1/800 sec

So, the edits in the sky are a boost to the whites and shadows, sliding the blacks down. I’ve increased the small details slider and also used the sky filter. I don’t find the difference between the film filter being used in the bottom half of the photo but not in the sky to be too jarring, but you can tell me your opinion in the comment section below.

Added to A Photo a Week Challenge, Landscape.

Cheers!

The Made with Luminar Series

This image is part of a project I am calling Made with Luminar. What the images in this series have in common is the software used to edit them, Luminar 3. As with my usual blog posts particulars of the camera settings can be found in the caption below the image. I’ll then explain what other filters and edits have been applied, often mentioning what layer and therefore order that they were applied. The text of these posts includes any Luminar “Looks” that have been applied to the photo. Each look is a series of presets that are applied to the photo. Where applicable I will mention what changes I have made to any of the looks. A full explanation of looks is available here on their website, https://skylum.com/luminar/user-guides/chapter-14-working-with-luminar-looks

You can assume basic edits have been applied. My most common edits are cropping, detail enhancement, and vignette. Specific questions or thoughts on the image are welcome in the comment section below.

January Squares: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Ah, winter, who doesn’t love winter? Me. When snowdrops begin to appear it signals the beginning of the end:

ISO 400 f/11 55mm 1/100sec

This edited photo of snowdrops is available on my Picfair portfolio. As shown, it has been edited in Luminar with a film fade look applied. For the square version, I simply applied a crop:

ISO 400 f/11 55mm 1/100sec

This post is the last in my January Squares series. I’ve really enjoyed this challenge, so thanks to you all who have followed along or checked in over the month. My biggest thanks though is to Becky who graciously hosted this challenge. The challenge will run again in April, with the theme being announced in March. If you would like information about how the challenge works check here.

I posted all my images for this challenge also on Instagram, today’s is here:

View this post on Instagram

Spring is coming. #fridayfeeling #spring #snowdrops #januarylight

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Jan 30, 2020 at 10:30pm PST

Added to Day 31 of January Squares, also to Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Cheers!