Ruins of St. Gilles

This photo was taken in Caen, France:

ISO 200 14mm f/16 1/200sec

We had spent the day looking at many of the sites in the city, Caen has a lot to look at, and it was a beautiful day to be out and about. The photo above is the ruins of St. Gilles. Here is my edit of this photo:

ISO 200 14mm f/16 1/200sec

I used a wide angle lens to take the original photo. I did start with a crop for my edit because there were a few buildings on the right side of the frame that I found distracting. I also took out the piece of red trash. My other edits were just boosts, a bit of tinkering for things like the white balance and detail enhancer. I find that in Luminar 3, I am using the details enhancer slider in place of the clarity slider. Why? the details are broken into three sliders, small, medium, and large details, I find this allows for a bit more nuance in the sharpening of the image.

Small edits, but I do like the result. What do you think? feel free to comment below.

I often have conversations through this blog about workflow, including management of files. The photo in this post is on my “slow but steady” track. I keep all my files in folders that are arranged chronologically by date. The folder will also have the name of the place where the photos were taken, in this case, Caen. When it comes time for that folder to be edited it is often months later. In this case, the photo was taken last May. It’s at this stage of editing that a lot of files end up in the trash bin.  It’s also at this point where I often refer to the photos I have taken of the scene on my phone as they have the GPS location data and I find that helpful for things like pulling up the name of this church. I fall into the camp of people who frequently move photo files off of my phone and on to my hard drive, so those iPhone files were in the same folder, that just makes things easier in my opinion.

Cheers!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Architecture.

Hidden in the photograph

The Alhambra is a sprawling architectural wonder. It’s beautiful, the buildings and the grounds. Full of little spots like this that are tucked away from view:

ISO 1600 10mm f/13 1/250sec

Wait, that photo doesn’t sell it? It was a tricky place to photograph. This particular courtyard was dark. The hazy overcast light of a rainy day wasn’t really doing me any favors either.  I took the photo anyway.  I had a feeling that I could create something that I liked.  Fast forward to this week, and here is what I have created:

ISO 1600 10mm f/13 1/250sec

When I originally looked at the file, I thought I would be sticking with the warm tones of the building. As it unfolded though, I ended up liking the cooler green tones. Another edit that I hadn’t originally considered was to take the already overexposed sky and overexpose it more, which lent an almost glow to the trees that I really liked.

I won’t mislead you, it took me a while and three editing software programs to get here. I started and ended in Lightroom. The first step in Lightroom was just to identify which file I liked the most in terms of composition. The winner got exported to Photoshop. When it comes to removing people, Photoshop healing tools remain my favorite over the ones that are in Lightroom. There were about six people in this photo that needed to go. From there, I have a Nik Analog Efex Pro* plug-in that I sometimes use when I want to get a film effect on my photographs. It was a good starting point in terms of getting the color cast and grain look that I wanted.  The file was then re-imported back to Lightroom for a few finishing touches, including a crop.

Whew, long journey. Totally worth it.

But what do you think? Do you like the edit? Have you ever edited something you really liked from a file that just seemed so-so? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Added to Travel with Intent, Hidden and Live Laugh RV, Architecture.

*So for a while, Nik Analog Pro had an older version that was available as a free download and that is the version I am using. The software has now been re-vamped and re-packaged and is available here. I do not own this version, so consider this link for your information only and not necessarily as a recommendation.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Joy

I had to smile when I saw this lollypop man outside his gingerbread house:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/80

This gingerbread house, done in graham crackers was part of an architecture unit done in school.  An example of the joy of learning.

This particular photo brought me joy because it turned out well right out of the camera and did not need any post editing.  So, I have chosen it for the weekly photo challenge that has joy as a theme.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Travel Theme: Architecture

If you are ever in St. Paul Minnesota, stop by the state capitol and take the tour. Don’t forget your camera because, weather permitting, the tour goes out on the roof:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

The view of St. Paul is wonderful and you can take a photo of this gold leaf statue that is on the roof of the building.

When I was on the roof, I was pretty sure that I was going to want to do an HDR version of this image.  So, I bracketed my exposures.  So the image above is a combination of three images, set to (-1, 0, 1)  I did this because it was an overcast but bright day, so I was pretty sure that just a single image would be pretty washed out.  I’ll put the original image in at the bottom of the post so that you will see what I mean.  I used Photomatix to create the HDR, but what I really wanted was an image that looked like what you would actually see, so I stayed away from the color manipulation that is possible in photo editing.  I then sharpened the image in Photoshop and cropped it just a bit.  Here is the original image:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

In this case, I think the HDR gave the image the subtle boost I was looking for.  What do you think?

This post was written in response to the weekly travel theme challenge at Where’s my backpack?; architecture is the topic for this week.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Geometry

Geometry, that was my favorite math in high school, and it is also the topic of this week’s photo challenge at WordPress.  I don’t do a lot of architecture photography but this shot is a picture of a stairwell in the St. Louis Art Museum that caught my eye.  I think it fits for this week’s challenge as well:

ISO 1600 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/40

I took this photo with my point and shoot.  I tried the shot on a few different settings, but my favorite was this one using the blue tone in the black and white setting.

Cheers!

Architecture in Black and White

This photo is another in the series I took last week for my digital photography class:

ISO 100 50mm (-2,-1,0)ev f/9 1/5

This was originally shot in color, using a tripod.  I bracketed the exposure because it was so bright and I was hoping to catch some details in the windows.  I ended up liking it in black and white over the color version.  I did my HDR work in Photomatix and then did some final tweaking in Aperture.

Would you have edited it differently? your thoughts are welcome in the comment section.

Cheers!

Photomatix and Architecture

Last week I was working on a architecture project for my digital photography class.  Here is a photo that I edited in Photomatix:

ISO 250 50mm -2ev f/16 1/250

The original image was handheld.  I bracketed the exposure -2 -1 0 because it was really bright out.  The sky was OK, but bright, which is one of the reasons I put this in Photomatix and went with a more artsy look.  How do you handle skies that are not cooperating? any cool tips you want to share? Feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Cheers!

Church Organ

I took this photo as part of an architecture assignment I am working on in digital photography class:

ISO 100 50mm f/2.8 1/5

I shot this originally in color.  I used a tripod and bracketed the exposure.  It has been edited using Photomatix and then Aperture.  I liked the outcome in black and white over what I came up with in color.

Cheers!