Dead Men Don't Overprocess...

PLEASE VIEW IN SOMETHING OTHER THAN GOOGLE CHROME (for MAC, not sure about PC) - it seriously limits the colors. see here for details.

 

Just trying to do something different and be creative. Maybe I'm guilty of over processing. However, since I was so rushed on this trip for all of my shots (w/wife and 2-year-old in tow), I didn't feel like I had the time to set up for epic shots and sunsets/sunrises. Maybe I'm over compensating for lack of composition on some of these:) If you take a look at the original shot below, you can see what I had to work with at the start.

 

How I did this, in case anyone's interested:

* Opened the original raw image in ACR and did my usual process of tweaking the fill light, upping the contrast, upping the blacks, etc. I pretty much use the same process as Tom Bricker, see this tutorial www.wdwphotography.com/workflow-tom-bricker/. BTW, I highly recommend this site for everyone - get yo learn on.

* Once in PS, I upped the shadows/highlights to bring out the shadow detail on the tower and bring it out of the darkness.

* Attempted to remove some of the fisheye effect with the distort tool because of the next step...

* Using the distort pointer tool, widened the base of the picture to use forced perspective and make the tower look… well, towering

* Applied Topaz Adjust on the image to bring out all of the subtle stains and lines in the stucco of the tower.

* Created a ray of light from behind the tower using the technique here: photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-manipulat...

* Added a rounded corner on the entire picture as shown here: matthom.com/archive/2004/09/10/fast-rounded-corners-in-ph...

 

Constructive criticism and feedback is welcomed.

Done