John Paul Caponigro usually saturates his images and I thought what a cool concept as I have never tried anything this saturated before.
RAW conversion through RSE. Masked the sky and changed the colors after adjusting levels and curves. Ran the original image through velvia vision. Layers again. Dodge and burn. Ran through NI several times hence the look in the waves. Sharpened and saved for web.
IMG_0836.CR2
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Woohooo! A ribbon in back to back weeks! And it's a BLUE! I am so excited and thrilled about this accomplishment! I am again humbled by my peers and it has been a great reward personally being part of this wonderful community.
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Shot in RAW and converted using RSE. I used mostly masks and layers for this image.
STEP 1:
Duplicated the background image. The sky was extracted using Extract Option in CS. I changed the color balance to bring out the reds, yellows and browns (mostly in red and yellows for midtones and shadows). I then used levels and curves to create the additional contrast for the sky. I then used the burn tool to bring out the clouds using the shadow levels and midlevels (10% exposure). Applied a slight blur to the sky to create the softness as the curves made it harsh.
STEP 2:
Duplicated the background layer again. Then I applied a velvia filter to the background copy image to bring out the warm tones in the rocks and the grass and sand. Adjusted levels to bring out the midtones. Burned some areas to vignette the image. Adjusted color balance. USM.
STEP 3:
Duplicated the sky layer and adjusted colors to bring out browns. With the layer blend command, I created a layer blend using hard light and overlay to merge the duplicate sky layer with the original sky layer. Set at lower opacity of the blended layer.
STEP 4:
Duplicated background layer. With the magic wand, I selected the water. With color balance, I adjusted blue and cyan to saturate colors of the water. Burn in the waves to bring out depth and shadow of waves. Sharpen.
STEP 5:
Merged and flattened the image. Healed the sensor dusts and specks with the healing brush.
STEP 6:
Bring the entire new image into Neat Image. I ran it through 4 times to soften the look of the image (varied percentages). Used the remove noise and sharpen option.
STEP 7:
Opened the image in PS and rotated to align horizon. Sharpened.
STEP 8:
Created 620x460 canvas and pasted the new image into the canvas and resized. Applied a 2 pixel stroke width and increased the canvas size to 640x480.
STEP 9:
Bring the small image and ran it through NI again but just to remove noise and specks.
STEP 10:
Applied USM in PS just slightly to sharpen a bit then saved for web.
Disqualification Details
Any attempts to alter the point totals in any way for any photograph will result in immediate loss of account and a ban from the site. Photographs by any participating parties may also be removed from past or current challenges.
Statistics
Views since voting: 16752 Views during voting: 677 Comments: 139 Favorites: 129 (view)
I have been viewing this photo for some time now trying to think of something more powerful and unique to say besides,Awesome or Amazing....how about Absolute Major Imagination Overload ! Congrats !
My first time on this site and what do I see but my hometown! Lived there all my life and I love the way you took a already beautiful scene and made it spectacular. Great work!
you need to teach me how to do those "last minute entry,again" i hate you no i am only kidding congrats-i gave it a ten-i don't know who the heck would give this a one(a troll)-beautiful picture!
Good grief - what a shot! I have been to Half Moon Bay a few times but this is a vision that supercedes all others: stunning composition and process work.
WTG Rikki!!! Whoa dude! Slow down, some of us are trying to catch up! ;-) Beautiful shot & certainly ribbon-worthy. Great job & congratulations! That blue ribbon finally arrived!
HOLY SMOKES DUDE! I didn't have time to even look at the entries in this challenge, so seeing how awesome this photo is has quite taken me by surprise! It's simply beautiful! Congrats, Rikki!!! WOW!!!!
Congratulations on your wonderful ribbon. It is an awesome image. For a last minute entry, this was amazing. I hope you plan on placing it in dp prints. I think it will sell a lot of images.
Wowsers!!! Geez, Rikki, I guess ya liked the feel of that ribbon, huh?
;-)
I didn't vote this challenge, but man, I would have given this absolutely stunning image a top vote! This is just awesome, straight to favs. Well done, oh, and congrats man :-)
Awesome effort, Rikki. I guess pm-ing for all those high votes paid off (jk). I didn't vote or view this Challneg ... so will have a look when I have time. But, way to go!
See rikki going to japan wasn't so bad after all. I see lot of good luck, two ribbons as you returned. Alas i could go to japan (if only i were not living it japan).
Great photo BTW.
I looked and looked and looked for this and i couldnt find it all challenge hahahah
YAY BLUE
You owe me a flight to cali dude!!
Umm youre going to think this a very strange msg hahah I forgot i wasn`t on my pc and therefore not logged in with my username - This is mesmeraj! OOPS!!
Stunning view. The sky is just too weird for me.. hope there will be an edit with the original (?) blue sky. The bottom half is 10, upper 6.. so 8 it is.
this is an incredible photo. all I can say is wow, what did you use? something like a tobacco filter? I wonder how you pulled this off, the colors combat each other amazingly 10
Stunning photograph, brilliant colors and tones. Amazing job of breaking the "don't center the horizon" rule. One of the rare occasions where a centered horizon looks incredible. Looks like another photographer I'm going to have to learn something about. Great job!
I found my ribbon! This is just mind blowing. I am just at awe looking at this image. Congrats in advance. In my faves. Please post a photo for printing later (and into wishlist).
Wow!This image is one of the best in this challenge. The colors are wonderful! I love the scenery that this image conveys! If this doesn't ribbon or place high, I will be utterly disappointed. Well done!
This seems to me to be a nice tribute photo to the photographer but representative of only a small part of his work. I like the drama, and I like the contrasty nature of the photo. Otherwise, it's a bit overprocessed for my taste. Don't let my POV trouble you. It's a great photo and I hope it does well inthe voting.
Very nice shot. As I look at the gallery of Elemental pictures from JPC I note that his pictures are a lot more simple, very basic, not much going on in the picture. Your pic has a LOT going on - however, no points off for that (just an observation, seeing as we are supposed to be "inspired" by the photographers work). Nice choice of photog and nice execution!
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