MAKING OF.
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How I edited my photo "Niagara Falls"
I took the photo on an observation deck close to the Canadian horseshoe falls. Exposure was five seconds, aperture f/8.0 with the help of a neutral density filter ND400. The image is way too dark and lacks contrast. My intention was to create a high contrast and high clarity black-white conversion.
01
In the first step I make global adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw. Exposure, brightness, fill light, clarity and contrast are affected.
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02
The black-white conversion is the next goal. I choose "Image - Calculations" and have a look which channel combinations end up in a good result. In this case I combine the green and the blue channel in multiply mode.
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03
To enhance the structure of the water I combine both the green and blue channel again, this time in linear burn mode and 30 percent only.
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04
Now I have two channel calculations which are copied from the channel palette to the layer palette. The originally colored layer is positioned at top with luminosity mode. With the help of a mask I hide out all image data except some details in the shadows. With another mask I combine the best parts of the two black-white layers.
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05
All layers are merged together (CTRL/CMD-SHIFT-ALT/OPTION-E) and get unsharp masked with an amount of 30 percent and a radius of 60 px. This step creates a strong midtone contrast.
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06
This hard contrast is applied to a few areas only, I use a mask again.
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07
Contrast in water is enhanced with a s-curve, the mask is copied from the previous step.
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08
Unintentionally blurred parts like the trees are recovered with a mask.
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09
With the spot healing brush tool I remove elements which draw too much attention and distract the viewer.
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10
With the spot healing brush tool I remove elements which draw too much attention and distract the viewer.
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11
Finally I create a vignette: I use the elliptical marquee and levels to accent the center of the image with its falls.
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12
Move the slider to compare the original photo with the final result (Mozilla Firefox). In the Internet Explorer alternatively click on any position.
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