Tag Archives: ABFriday

One Photo Focus-Augsut 2016

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One the first Friday of each month, Stacy Fischer’s AfterBefore Friday Forum invites all participants to work their magic on the same image–an image that is selected by one of the participants in advance.  Hence the title of the event is “One Photo Focus.”  It happens that this month I am the one supplying the image and I can’t wait to see what creative license is taken with it by the other participants.  Their creations can be found at Visual Venturing and I hope everyone will check them out.

Robin Kent 1PF August 2016 Original Raw Version)

Original Raw Image — Unprocessed

The original image (above) was taken during a recent trip to London.  I’m sure everyone recognizes the iconic London Eye, a 443-foot-high Ferris wheel, erected in 1999.  The building to the right is London County Hall which served as the city of London’s seat of government through most of the 20th century.  It now houses a variety of tourist attractions and an upscale hotel. The photo was taken from the Westminster Bridge and, if one looked 90 degrees to the left one would see an even more iconic scene, the buildings of Parliament and the grand tower with the famous clock known as Big Ben.

I decided to take the straight approach this time and stayed away from my favorite sandbox, AKA the Filter Gallery.  I followed my normal workflow by using Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) to set the black and white points, increase the clarity and vibrance a bit, and then opened it in Photoshop.  Once in Photoshop, the tilt of the big wheel was annoying so a slight adjustment with the Transform function (Edit->Transform) was used to fix the problem. There was also a smudge-like apparition in the clouds left of the wheel’s center that needed removal. These adjustments are shown in the image below.

Robin Kent 1PF August 2016 Color Version)

Image after ACR and Basic Clean-up in Photoshop

Thinking what to do for One PhotoFocus, I thought he dark clouds seemed to be the most dramatic feature.  One possibility that seemed promising was to take advantage of those clouds in a black and white photograph.  This was accomplished with an Adjustment Layer (Layer->New Adjustment Layer->Black and White.  The High Contrast Red Filter preset was used to further emphasize the clouds.Finally I used a mask and a curves adjustment layer to strengthen the contrast of the water and the right half of the building.  The final image is shown below.

Robin Kent 1PF August 2016 BW Version)

Final Image

Thanks once again to Stacy Fischer for keeping our merry band of post processors on track.  Please visit her site at Visual Venturing to see the creative imaginations of the other participants.

Close to Home

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Since I’m on the road today, this post combines the monthly One Friday Focus, sponsored by Stacy Fischer’s Visual Venturing Blog and a short piece inspired by a conversation last week with a fellow photographer.  Meanwhile, I’m off on another short trip this weekend, hopefully to capture a few images of the Milky Way over the Atlantic Ocean.  So once again, this post will serve double duty.

Last week Kim, a fellow photographer in the Great Falls Studios organization, described her specialty as photographing wildlife in her backyard.  Later, while reflecting on what she had been saying, I realized that I had been doing only a little of this over the years.  Other than a major effort on a pair of nesting bluebirds, I have not really concentrated on seeking subject matter just outside my windows.  Her stories made me think that perhaps I should look harder.  But for now, I decided to search through my files for some images that I already had taken to see what did happen to catch my eye.  The one rule: they had to have been taken from a spot within 100 feet of my house.   So, for what it is worth, here they are:

Kent June 2016 Solar Halo

Solar Halo

(Technical: Nikon D200 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 18mm handheld; 1/1,000th sec. @ f/16, ISO 200)

Kent June 2016 Snow

Snow on Tree

(Technical: Nikon D200 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 120mm handheld; 1/160th sec. @ f/6.3, ISO 200)

Kent June 2016 Magnolia

Magnolia

(Technical: Nikon D800E with 60mm f/2.8 Micro lens on tripod; 1/100th sec. @ f/8, ISO 400)

Heron D-16-05-21-5862

Blue Heron Taking Flight

(Technical: Nikon D810 with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 70mm on tripod; 1/500th sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 3200)

Kent June 2016 Butterfly

Tiger Swallowtail on Purple Coneflower

(Technical:  Nikon D800E with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 70mm handheld; 1/1250th sec. @ f/6.3, ISO 800)

Bluebird D-16-05-02-9754

Female Bluebird Bringing Dinner

(Technical: Nikon D800E with 50mm f/1.8 lens; 1/2000th sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 800)

This image was taken last month but is the same birdhouse used in my post a year ago.  I was planning a new approach this year.  Readers may recall that previously I had used a 200mm focal length lens on a camera inside the house and an off camera flash about six feet from the nest.  The flash was triggered by a wireless remote system (Pocket Wizard) but a single flash only provided a small amount of fill light.  This year, I planned to use Nikon’s wireless remote that would trip the camera’s shutter and place the camera about 10 feet from the nest.  I would be able to fire the shutter in continuous mode (not feasible with flash) while remaining inside the house. Unfortunately, I had only one day of shooting thanks to a sustained period of rainy weather.  But should the birds return next year, I may have better luck.

One Friday Focus

This month’s image was another interesting challenge, many thanks to David Croker for providing it.  As a reminder, the 1PF Challenge is sponsored by Stacy Fischer of Visual Venturing and anyone can participate.  Details can be found at  Visual Venturing .

David’s original RAW image is shown below.  It offers a variety of possibilities and started as usual  by going through some standard steps of image prep (setting B&W points, highlights, shadows, etc. in Adobe Camera Raw).  Following this,  I opened the file in Photoshop and tried several approaches such as a straight black and white print which looked very nice, but I finally decided to go on a more radical direction.

2016 06 1PF Original

This usually means a foray into the Filter Gallery, which is fast becoming my “go-to” place for this monthly event.  Needless to say, I do not possess a single plug-in app so my choices are somewhat restricted, comparatively speaking.

But I digress.  The tool I picked is the so-called Glowing Edges under the “Stylize” Tab.  Although I have used this one before, it behaves quite unpredictably (at least for me) so the results can be quite different in each case.  There are three adjustment sliders to control the effects and the final settings were: Edge Width: 2;  Edge Brightness: 17; and Smoothness: 8.  It was starting to look pretty decent, but the lovely blue sky in the upper portion was now a black void and desperately needed help.  Rather than just crop it out, I used the clone tool to copy sections of the lower clouds.  This, of course, created a new problem–the newly created clouds were not reflected in the water below.

The solution was to select the upper clouds, then copy them into a new layer.  I then used the Edit–>Transform–>Flip Vertical function to flip the layer and then I dragged it down to the bottom of the image.  An actual reflection should be softer and not as bright as the original object so I used the gaussian blur tool and a decrease in the opacity of the layer to create a look that matched the reflections that were already there.  The final image is shown below.

Robin Kent 2016 06 1PF Final Final

Thanks again to David for providing this month’s image and thanks also to Stacy for keeping this herd of cats heading in a generally productive direction.  Be sure and check out the other contributions at June One Photo Focus.  One again, there will be an amazing variety of interpretations.  In the meantime,

 

Keep Shooting….

OnePhoto Focus (March)

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It’s the first Friday of the month and that means it’s time for Stacy Fisher’s famous OnePhoto Focus where everyone gets a chance to apply their magic touches to the same image.  But before we get to that, a flash back to last month when I visited the Washington National Cathedral for a morning shoot.

National Cathedral 02

Morning Light, National Cathedral

(Technical Data: Nikon D810 on tripod with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, extended to 44mm; two images photomerged, exposure 0.5 sec@ f/16, ISO 400)

The National Cathedral has recently started a series of special sessions for photographers who wish to capture images of the interior before the doors open for the public.  The number of photographers is limited to about 25 and reservations can be made in advance. Tripods are allowed and, depending on the day some areas may not be open. Cost of admission is $30.  Details can be found here.

Now back to our main program, the monthly OnePhoto Focus.  This month’s photograph was contributed by Nancy Merrill.  The original is shown below.

March 2016 1PF Before

Original Image by Nancy Merrill

The building, as the sign indicates, is a theatre dedicated to the works of Shakespeare.  The theatrical theme seemed to be a good one to run with and, as we all know, theatre deals with fantasy.  So I thought I would go with that.

No need to go into the boring details of the “image prep” phase in Adobe Camera Raw, largely because Nancy has kindly provided us with a clean, well-exposed, and sharply focused image that needs no heroic efforts.  Only a few standard tweaks were applied.

The next step was to set the scene and it seemed that a visit to Photoshop’s Filter Gallery would be a good place to start.  The “Glowing Edges” effect under the Stylize tab produced an electric effect and, after a little trial and error, the image shown below emerged. The  sign was “protected” from the effects of the filter tool because I had other plans for it.

Robin Kent 1PF March 2016 Step 2A

“Glowing Edge” Effect Applied

Since this is a Shakespearean Theatre, it seemed appropriate to make that fact very obvious.  A quick online search produced an image of a poster for one of the bard’s most famous plays.  It was superimposed as a separate layer and the opacity was slightly reduced.  A mask was used to paint out the unwanted sections of the poster.

Robin Kent 1PF March 2016 Step 4A

Sign Added

With the stage and scenery ready, some characters are needed.  Back to the Internet.  This search found several willing participants: a fashion model, a photographer, and a couple descending the stairs.

Robin Kent 1PF March 2016 Final

Final Image

On a technical note, the procedure I used for adding these elements was to first create a new layer above the background.  The copied images were scaled down using the Edit–>Transform–>Scale tool on the inserted layer (be sure to hold the shift key down to maintain the original aspect ratio).

Thanks again to Stacy for organizing this monthly event. You can see the other versions by the participants by clicking on this link.  And thanks to Nancy for a fun image to edit.

AfterBefore Friday–OnePhoto Focus (September 2015)

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This is the first Friday of the month and that means it’s time for Stacy Fischer’s OnePhoto Focus, (1PF) where photographers from all over take their turn on the same image.  The range of interpretations is always impressive, and you can find the links to the other submissions at Visual Venturing. For those who wish to get into the game, the guidelines can be found here.

This month, our image has been provided by Ben Rowe of Aperture64 and, as anyone who has visited his site already knows, Ben is a highly skilled user of post-processing software.  Consequently, it was with some trepidation that I undertook the challenge this month.

Robin Kent 1PF September BeforeHDR version from Adobe Camera RAW

But, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  When I saw that Ben had provided 3 versions of the image, taken at different exposures, I figured at the very least I could try out the new HDR feature in the most recent release of Adode Camera RAW.  The default choices produced the image above, an evenly balanced exposure that has no areas of under or overexpsure.

The next step was to take the result through the standard Camera Raw workflow to set the white and black points, open some of the shadows, add a little contrast with the Clarity slider, and a little saturation with the Vibrance slider.  Nothing special was needed here because the image really had no exposure problems.

It was also clear that Ben had made an excellent choice for the group because the image provides a wide variety of creative possibilities. I can’t wait to see what the other participants have done.

But before I started the intrusive surgery, a couple of standard Photoshop tools were used.  The sky was darkened with a Curves Adjustment Layer, the grass was fertilzed with a Color Balance Adjustment Layer, and the Castle was also warmed up with a Color Balance Adjustment Layer. The results are shown below.

Robin Kent 1PF September Before 02

After Photoshop Adjustments

It seemed that one approach was to take advantage of the open spaces that could be filled with interesting objects so  I decided to go in that direction.  But I didn’t take notes because I knew some ideas would not work, directions were likely to be reversed, and restarts might be frequent.

For those who like puzzles, I ended up adding 12 changes  to the image, some of them quite obvious (e.g., the 4 planes count as 4).  Others, such as color changes may be a little harder to find.

Robin Kent 1PF September After

Final Image

At any rate, I invite you to zip over to Stacy’s site and take a few minutes to enjoy the other ideas for post-processing this image.  You can find them here.

 

ABFriday Week 57

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This week’s ABFriday Forum was in serious jeopardy of not happening because our usual hostess (Stacy Fischer of Visual Venturing) is out of town this week.  However, a heroic rescue by Loré Dombaj of “Snow’s Fissures and Fractures” has made it possible for all of us to continue.  As usual, this week’s forum allows pparticipants to submit an example of  how they transform an image to reveal their creative vision.  You can see all of the others at Loré’s post here.  And as always, you can get all the guidelines for participating in this forum by checking out Stacy Fischer’s site here.

Sometimes its a good idea to go back and review the image files from a major shooting session to see if a good image might have been overlooked.  This week’s submission to ABFriday is an example.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 60 Before

Before Image (Original RAW File)

The above image apparently escaped my attentiona few months ago when I was selecting images for an exhibit. on Antarctica.  But this image caught my eye during a subsequent review of the image files a couple weeks ago.  I remembered the scene as being much more colorful and thought there might be some potential.

The scene was taken as our boat was heading north in the Gerlache Strait at about 10:45 PM. The sun’s last light hitting the top of the mountain was similar to the alpenglow effect I had seen in the past.

As usual, the image was first opened in Adobe Camera RAW.(ACR) and the adjustments were fairly standard (setting the black and white points, reducing Highlights, opening up the Shadows, adding some Clarity and Vibrance). Then, in Photoshop CC, two Curves Adjustment Layers were added, one to increase the contrast of the mountain and snow, the second to darken the sky.  A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was used to slightly increase the saturation of the sky. Next a bit of the sky was cropped out for balance in the composition and, as a final step, a gradient layer was used to darken the sky (Blend Mode: Soft Light).  Now it looked like the scene I saw that night. Robin Kent ABFriday Week 60 After

Final Image

Thanks again to Loré Dombaj for organizing this week’s After Before Friday Forum.  Please visit her site to see all of the other submissions by clicking here.

AfterBefore Friday Week 55

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Today marks Week 55 in the AfterBefore Friday series managed by Stacy Fischer of Visual Venturing.  It’s open to anyone and participants share their approach of transforming one of their own images into its final form, an expression of their creative vision.  You can find links to all of the other participants here.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out one of the new tools that appeared in the most recent Photoshop CC upgrade.  Most writers have been rhapsodizing about the new “Dehaze” tool, but I have been far more pleased by the integration of the Photomerge capability into the Adobe Raw Camera (Version 9.1) process.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Before

Original Image (one of four)

The above image is one of four used to produce an overall image the front of the Jefferson Memorial at sunrise.  Longtime readers may recall that I used a single image from this set in ABFriday Week 44.  But that was to produce a much tighter crop. This week it will be a wider view to include the tree on the left side of the building and some balance on the other side.  Now, I could have captured all of this in a single image using a wide angle lens, but I wanted to avoid the distortion of an extreme wide angle and I also wanted to be able to make really big prints if the image turned out nicely. (Technical: Four images with a Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 42mm; Exposure: 1/160th sec. @ f/16, ISO 400)

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Screen 01

The Well-Hidden Photomerge Button

The screen capture above shows the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) display window with the  four RAW images opened as the first step for a photomerge.  In what must be one of the most obscure placements of a functional command in history, Adobe has seen fit to place this teeny little button in the upper left corner of the window, just to the right of the word “Fimstrip”  (Red Arrow).  If you select 2 or more images and then click on that little spot, you get the flyout menu (Yellow Arrow) that is displayed showing several options including “Merge to Panorama.”

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Screen 04

Preview of Photomerge Process

If you click on that command, a preview window quickly appears as shown in the screen capture above. The ACR process has chosen which of three “projections”  it believes will produce the best result which, in this case, was “Perspective”  (Red Arrow). If you are not happy with that one, you can click on one of the other two to compare the results. It also provides a preview of an “Auto Crop” (Yellow Arrow) which essentially cleans up the ragged edges of a typical photomerge process.  A very nice touch, I thought. The image below shows the result when this box is unchecked.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Screen 03

Auto Crop Unchecked.

In some cases, one may decide to handle the cropping on their own, but it obviously did a fine job here.  Once you are happy with the result,  click on the “Merge” command and it quickly goes to the “Save As” function as shown in the screen capture below.  Just give the file the approapriate name and select the folder in which it is to be saved.  So far about 60 seconds have passed.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Screen 06

Saving the Merged image

As shown the Screen Capture below, a new thumbnail of the photomerge has appeared in the filmstrip (Red Arrow) and is ready to be processed like any other RAW file.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 Screen 05

ACR Window after Save Command is Executed

From here one just uses their standard workflow.  In this case I used the follwing settings: Highlights decreased to -31; Shadows increased to +73; Whites increased to +57; Blacks increased to +16; Clarity increased to +30; and Vibrance increased to +39.  The image was then opened in Photoshop, where I spent some time removing a few of the people on the steps.  The final result is shown below.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 55 After

Final Image

Comments and Questions are welcome.  Please be sure to check out the other examples of post-processing techniques at Stacy’s post, ABFriday Week 55.

Keep Shooting…….

 

One Photo Focus–July

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One the first Friday of each month, Stacy Fischer’s AfterBefore Friday Forum invites all participants to work their magic on the same image–an image that is selected by one of the participants in advance.  Hence the title of the event is “One Photo Focus.”

For July,  I drew the straw for providing the image and so, in the spirit of the U.S. July 4th Holiday tomorrow, I selected the image below.  The efforts of the other participants can be found at Visual Venturing and I hope everyone will check them out.  I am sure there will be some interesting demonstrations of creative imagination.

2015 06 01 Before

The Before Image

Now I certainly hope that the current occupants of the building do not mistakenly conclude that what transpires next is anything other than a demonstration of certain image processing techniques.

As is my usual practice in One Photo Focus, I wanted to try some new things and a good place to find them is among the many Filter options available in Photoshop.

 

2015 05 01 PhotoFocus Before 03B

 

The image was opened in Photoshop and I used the Filter–>Distort–>Shear option shown above.  The 5 black dots in the grid square can be dragged to the right or left of the centerline to createa variety of effects.  The setting above produced this:

2015 05 01 PhotoFocus Before 02A

Now any attempts to introduce commentary about the dangers of moving too far from the center line will be quickly called out for what they are:  brazen attempts to politicize an innocent and well meaning photography demonstration.

Besides there is more work to be done.  Thus, the Filter–>Stylize–>Solarize option was introduced which produced the rather somber results shown below:

2015 05 01 PhotoFocus Before 03A

This would never do. So a rescue operation was launched using a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer as shown below.  A very heavy application of Saturation (+76) was applied.

2015 05 01 PhotoFocus Before 04B

The result, shown below, is at least more colorful than before.

2015 05 01 PhotoFocus Before 05A

Final Result

I wasn’t really happy with this outcome so I started over and tried something else. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find my notes. But here is the result.

2015 06 01 Globe After 02

I hope everyone who celebrates the 4th of July has an enjoyable day tomorrow.  In the meantime, please check out One Photo Focus hosted by Stacy Fischer at Visual Venturing.

 

 

AfterBefore Friday: Bluebird Bonanza

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There are no written rules for the ABFriday Forum which is fortunate, because this post surely would be breaking them.

This Friday is the third Friday of the month, the new scheduled appearance of the Forum hosted by Stacy Fischer of Visual Venturing.  Participants from all over the world jointly publish posts to exchange ideas about transforming what their capture sees into what they see.

But the memo didn’t get to the pair of bluebirds nesting in a box about 30 feet from my desktop computer.  They set up housekeeping about six weeks ago, and the eggs hatched on/about 29 May.  When I saw that the parents were arriving at the same spot every 5 minutes, the idea for exploring a new photographic subject became irresistible.  Those with some knowledge of avian biology can see where I’m going with this.  The youngsters would be fledging during the third week of June.

So, in a pathetic attempt to follow at least a semblance of the ABfriday Forum Procedure, the image below will be the Before Image.

Robin Kent ABFriday week 56 Before

Early Attempt (very tight crop)

(Nikon D800E on tripod with 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm; exposure 1/640th sec @ f/10, ISO 1250)

My goal was to capture the birds in flight, and I thought that knowing their precise destination would make it relatively straightforward.  Such was not the case. My intention was to balance a decent depth of field with an ISO that wasn’t too extreme but still allowed a pretty fast shutter speed.  (See technical data above)  As the result shows, it was necessary to go back to the drawing board.

How about adding an off-camera flash close to the nesting box?  Well, the standard sync speed of the Nikon is 1/250th sec. In other words, that is the fastest shutter speed for normal flash operations.  However, there is a  setting deep in the menu called Auto FP High Speed Sync.  (Details at Nikon.com here)   It enables one to shoot flash up to the camera’s top speed of 1/8000th sec.  There is a certain irony that it took a bluebird to lead me to this piece of knowledge.

Robin Kent ABFriday week 56 Before 02

Male Bluebird Removing Trash from Nest

(Nikon D800E on tripod with 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm; exposure 1/4000th sec @ f/2.8, ISO 3200; off- camera SB-800 flash for fill light)

But the sync setting is only part of the problem.  With the flash about 25 feet from the camera, I would need a wireless remote trigger and, of course, the capabilities of the old PocketWizards I owned were not up to the Auto FP Sync technology.  I decided to purchase the  PocketWizard Flex TT5 for the flash and Mini TT1 for the camera.

The main difference with the second image is the high shutter speed.  It didn’t take long to figure out that 1/3200th sec. is the minimum speed for a bluebird in flight.  A single flash adds some fill, but not much else.  So that limits the depth of field and forces a high ISO setting.  Compromise may be out of style in politics, but is required in photography.

Robin Kent ABFriday week 56 Before 03

 Female Bluebird Bringing Food

(Nikon D800E on tripod with 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm; exposure 1/8000th sec @ f/4.0, ISO 3200; off- camera SB-800 flash for fill light)

The above image shows the maximum sutter speed for the Nikon D800E.  Exposures varied widely, depending on the amount of sunlight striking the scene.  The flash was not powerful enough to be the dominant factor. (Note to self, save $$ to buy more flashes and transceivers.)

Robin Kent ABFriday week 56 Before 04

Female and Male Bringing More Food

(Nikon D800E on tripod with 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm; exposure 1/6400th sec @ f/4.5, ISO 3200; off- camera SB-800 flash for fill light)

Having drawn the line on spending additional cash for gear, the results depended largely on luck.  Three factors would have to be favorable: Would the sun be unblocked by clouds or the shade from trees?  Would the birds stay within the narrow channel defined by the depth of field?  Would I react quickly enough when they arrived? Short answer: “Usually, No.”   I now have even more respect for fulltime wildlife photographers who have far less control over shooting situations than I did in this case.

Robin Kent ABFriday week 56 Before 05

Third Fledging Leaves the Nest

(Nikon D800E on tripod with 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm; exposure 1/4000th sec @ f/6.3, ISO 1600; off- camera SB-800 flash for fill light)

As proof of that, I was quick enough to obtain only a single image of one of the fledglings as it left the nest and began its life in the wider world.  But if you are curious, you can take a peek at a video clip that was recorded at the time on a separte camera.  It shows the departure of two of the fledgings.  Click Here to see the Video.  Who would have thought that the 2nd body I bought for Antarctica would come in handy for photographing bluebirds in Virginia?

Not much post-processing discussed here but there are a lot of examples of exceptional work by the other participants at Stacy’s Visual Venturing site.  Please check them out.  In the meantime,

Keep Shooting….

One Photo Focus–June (and More!)

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This week markes the first anniversary of Stacy Fischer’s ABFriday Forum and I’d like to take the oppportunity to congratulate Stacy on the fantastic effort she has given over the past 52 weeks.  As usual on the first Friday of the month, the ABFriday gang will all be working on the same image.  And this month, the image is being provided by none other than Stacy herself.  It will be very interesting to see how each participant handles the challenge, and you can find links to all of them by clicking on VisualVenturing.com.

This post also has a totally unrelated second story below abou a couple of my favorite bridges.

But first, the starting image for One Photo Focus is shown below,and  will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the exclamation: “Shazbot!”  Yes, the house is the very structure that served as home base for the famed TV couple, “Mork and Mindy.”

2015 06 01A Before

Contrary to the approach I have followed in recent ABFriday events, I decided to play it straight this week, so the steps were quite straightforward and do not need to be shown in step-by-step fashion.  I used Adobe Camera RAW to correct much of the overexposure, then opened the image in Photoshop, removed the dirt piles wioth the Clone Tool, and added two Curves Adjustment Layers to fine tune the contrast and eliminate the remaining overexposure on the Queen Anne Tower.  The final touch was a modest gradient to furthen darken the sky (blend mode = soft light).  The final result is shown below. To check out the other submissions, go to Visual Venturing and you will see some really creative approaches.

2015 06 01A One Photo Focus Before 05A

The “After “Image

On a different subject, the normally boring subject of bridge repair made news this week, involving a bridge in Washington, D.C. and another in Paris, France.    But the news in both cases has significance to photographers because both structures are highly popular photographic subjects and therefore is worthy of some attention.

Memorial Bridge 01

 Memorial Bridge at Sunrise, View from Ohio Drive SW, Washington, DC

Here in Washington, The Arlington Memorial Bridge was discovered to have some serious structural deficiencies and a partial closure was abruptly implemented on May 29th.  One lane in each direction will be closed for 6-9 months while emergency repairs are made.  In addition, vehicles such as buses and trucks weighing over 10 tons will no longer be able to cross the bridge.  Details were reported by the Washington Post.   This is not a typical highway project, because the Memorial Bridge is considered by many to be the most beautiful bridge in Washington.

Memorial Bridge 02

Memorial Bridge at Dawn, View from Mount Vernon Trail, Virginia

Memorial Bridge 03

Moonrise, Memorial Bridge

 Three days later In Paris, city officials began dismantling the wire mesh railings of the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge that has become famous for the so-called “love locks” attached by couples as a symbol of their love for each other.  Details on the event were reported worldwide, including the New York Times.

Pont des Arts 01

Pont des Arts in 2006 (No locks anywhere)

As the images above and below show, the Pont des Arts by itself is not particularly photogenic, but its proximity to the Institut de Paris (shown below) and the Louvre on the opposite side of the Seine makes it hard to resist.  The padlock craze began in 2008 and grew slowly at first.  When the 2010 image below was taken, it and one other pedestrian bridge had 2,000 locks in place which works out to just a lock or two per day.  But a few weeks after the 2010 image was taken, Paris officials announced the fad was getting out of hand.

Pont des Arts 02

Pont des Arts (on left) and the Institut de France in 2010

Pont des Arts 03

Pont des Arts, 2014

Four years later, the love-locks were everywhere.  More than 11 bridges in Paris were bulging with thousands of padlocks, with an estimated 700,000 on the Pont des Arts alone.  During our 2014 visit, one of the panels of the Pont des Arts collapsed from the weight of the locks (about 1,500 pounds). And it was just as bad at the Pont de l’Archevêché, near Notre Dame (see below)

Pont de l'Archvechet 01Pont de l'Archvechet 02

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pont de l’Archevêché in 2014

Perhaps urban hiking could benefit from a variation of the motto seen in the National Parks: “Take Only Photos, Leave Nothing Behind.”   But whatever you do……

Keep Shooting……

ABFriday Forum– Week 51

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Week 51!!! 

Next week is the 1st Anniversary Edition and that will be extra special but there never will be another Week 51.

The AfterBefore Friday Forum has been adroitly managed by Stacy Fischer for 51 consecutive weeks, allowing anyone with an interest in image post-processing to participate.  Guidelines and this week’s edition are available for all to see at her Visual Venturing site.

My submission this week takes a look at one of my favorite tools in Photoshop, the Photomerge process.  If you have never tried this, it’s really easy to do.  For example, let’s stay with the theme of last week—“Road Trip”–and use a location that is a little further west:  Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, Montana.  The late afternoon sun made the colorful boats stacked on the dock a natural subject and the result of the first image taken is shown below.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 51 Before

First Image, Unprocessed RAW File

But while this was a reasonably decent image, it didn’t seem to convey the great expanse of the scene that I saw.  Thinking a panorama format would do the trick, a second shot (same exposure as the first) was taken with the camera swung to the left but partially overlapping the first image.

Both images were opened in Adobe Camera RAW, but only minimal changes were needed.  So minimal, we won’t waste time on them.  Next, they both were opened in Photoshop and then the command sequence File–>Automate–>Photomerge was executed to bring up the display shown below:

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 51 Before 03

The Photomerge Dialog Box

The first step is to click on “Add Open Files,” (Red Arrow) which brings all open images into the list.  If any appear that are not supposed to be there, highlight them and click on “Remove.”  Most of the time, the “Auto” process will work just fine (Red Arrow.)  Make sure you click on “Blend Images Together.”  (Red Arrow) Then click “OK.” (Blue Arrow)   Something like the screen capture below will appear.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 51 Before 02

The process produces separate layers for each image used.  In this case we have only two (Red Arrow).  The image must first be flattened before any further work is done (Layer–>Flatten Image).  Next, a judicious crop removes the uneven edges (Yellow Arrows) and one is ready to continue with whatever additional adjustments are necessary.

Very little additional work was needed at this point.  A slight boost in contrast using a Curves Layer Adjustment (Preset: Linear; Blend Mode: Normal), then a neutral density gradient layer for the sky and mountains (Blend Mode: Soft Light), and finally, a teeny bump with a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer (Saturation: +6).  The final result is shown below.

Robin Kent ABFriday Week 51 After

Please visit Stacy Fischer’s Visual Venturing Site to see all of the other submissions.  There are always many interesting ideas to be found.