201. Help!

Swiss Alps, Switzerland
photo by John Rodenn Castillo
website - https://www.eyeem.com/u/14590670
original image - https://unsplash.com/photos/rQqWOHZ96OM

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There is a subreddit dedicated to proving that Switzerland doesn't exist, as its landscapes look too meticulous and beautiful to be real. This photo is a case in point I guess.

So, given that this image is probably a fake anyway, I made it even more fake by throwing in a ballooon. Just to break up the monochrome nature of the photo and give it a point of interest. Although I don't think the occupants of the balloon would have a good time at that height.

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190. Through the Clouds

‘Clandestine’ - Cuerno Principal and Este mountains, Torres Del Paine National Park, Southern Patagonia, Chile
photo by Ted Gore
website - http://www.tedgorecreative.com/
original image - https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5349724ee4b056257cdcb44b/1455149006523-DJAPHH7TCQPQDTYTQ6ZT/24794871145_5f1c52194c_o.jpg

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Nice framing by the couds.

The Magic Hour seemed a bit too orange to me, so I let some blues back in.

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185. Onions

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain
photo by Christoffer Engström
website - https://unsplash.com/@christoffere
original image - https://unsplash.com/photos/8NuHwPbO62k

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...have layers.

Nothing at all was done to this.

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183. Livin' on a Prayer

Seceda, Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
photo by Daniel Francis
website - https://www.flickr.com/photos/d2francis2/
original image - https://live.staticflickr.com/8410/29967995056_f0621b1bec_k.jpg

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Coz we're half way there. This is the 183rd wallpaper. Exactly half way through the year. And this one is fitting, because a photo of this particular place - Seceda in Italy - made me waant to start collecting landscapes. Here is the photo. Technically, it's pretty bad, but the atmosphere is something else. So I wanted a similar, but higher quality photo of this cliff, during a cloud inversion. Easier said than done. I finally found one I almost liked, but it was shot during a very sunny day, with too much glare for my taste. So I decided to make it more moody, and here's the result.

I turned the sky stormy, and tried to make it look like there is a hole in the clouds somewhere off-screen through which the sky shines onto the green plateau. You be the judge if I succeeded (had to really hold myself back not to make a really bad pun here. But now you have it in your mind anyway, don't you?)

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182. Purplish-magenta

Huangshan Mountains (Yellow Mountains), Anhui province, China
photo by Pavel Dvořák Jr.
website - https://www.flickr.com/photos/41709344@N07/
original image - https://wiki-travel.com.vn/Uploads/picture/NguyenBinhVTV-155405105401-Huangshan.jpg
Windows 10 Spotlight version - https://windows10spotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/73098dd6129c9024ea6dc6ed06d53602.jpg

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This was a difficult one. I ran into it in Windows 10 Spotlight, and I immediatelly liked it, especially the purplish-magenta tint, but it was obviously taken too far - so-much-so that it started looking airbrushed. I wanted a hint of those colors, but still somewhat plausible. The thing is, it was difficult to track down the original photo - apparently, the photographer took several of them in a short span of time (the clouds and the canopies move a bit between them), and they each came cropped slightly differently. So this is a composit of several of them.

Then I made the colors similar to Windows 10 Spotlight ones, only not so drastic.

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160. Just a Normal Day in Iceland

‘Distant Wonderland’ - Landmannalaugar, Fjallabak Nature Reserve, Iceland
photo by Max Rive
website - https://maxrivephotography.com/
original image - https://portfolio.maxrivephotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Distant-Wonderland.jpg

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What's going on in that place?! Everything looks like it's on another planet! Anyways, one of the guys suffered an emergency guyectomy, because the photo looks better with only one of them. A guy standing on top of things is this photographer's signature look.

Other than removing the surplus dude - and his shadow! - I didn't do anything here.

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143. Missing Person Report

‘Photographer at Delicate Arch’ - Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, Utah, USA
photo by Luckyphotographer
website - N/A
original image - https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-photographer-delicate-arch-arches-national-park-utah-image50000968

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Contrary to the photo title, the titular photographer is nary to be found. That's cause I removed him, along with another spectator. Sorry about that. I wanted a sense of loneliness around this beautiful stone arch.

Other than that, I darkened the shadows slightly and cleaned-up some sharpening artefacts.

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139. Warm 'n' Glowy

‘Kolyma Gold’ - Jack London Lake, Kolyma, Russia
photo by Daniel Kordan
website - https://danielkordan.com/
original image - https://danielkordan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/DJI_0585-Pano%D0%BE%D0%BE.jpg

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Another photo by Daniel Kordan. I love the warm glow here, so satisfying.

I fixed the general levels and increased sharpness a little.

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