National Park in Nan province, Thailand
photo by Pongpon Rinthaisong
website - https://www.instagram.com/spyarm/
original image - https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-landscape-national-park-nan-thailand-province-image67643824#res29250703
A nice clean composition. I made it even cleaner by removing the visitors.
There was also a terribad vignette in there, so I gently threw it out.
‘Nemophila’ - Lone tree in baby blue eyes flower field in Hitachi seaside park, Hitachinaka, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan
photo by Morgan French
website - https://mtfrench.smugmug.com/
original image - https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-QsV78bk/3/4K/i-QsV78bk-4K.jpg
The tree by itself is amazing, the crazy blue flowers take the whole photo to another level.
It needed some work, though. I removed the park visitors, brought out the detail from the clouds, balanced the colors, and removed a bad vignette.
’Natural Networks’ - unique rock pattern in a beach in Portugal only visible at low tide, Villa Nova de Milfontes, Alentejo region, Portugal
photo by José Ramos
website - https://www.instagram.com/joseramosphotography/
original image - https://i.redd.it/gdd9xm2ulwf61.jpg
Kind of inverse of this.
Unfortunately, both photos had one thing in commmon: a vignette. Out it went.
A winding road north of Montreal, Québec, Canada
photo by Petunia-Rivers
website - https://www.reddit.com/user/Petunia-Rivers/
original image - https://i.redd.it/foso4l8ieji21.jpg
I usually don't like too radical color grading (unless I do it), but this photo is an exception. It found it on reddit's I Took A Photo. It's the classic, overused teal-and-orange color scheme, and I love it anyway. The road so oversaturated that it actually turned teal somehow looks great. The shallow depth-of-field also looks great. It's just one of those photos that shoud be unremarkable, but it just happens to strike you the right way. But I agree with one of the reddit commenters, it was missing a point of interest. Hence the snail. So it's a composit.
Unfortunatelly, it had a terrible vignette that I had to get rid of. I also darkened the whole things while I was at it.
Dún Briste sea stack, Downpatrick Head, Ireland
photo by Frederick Bancale
website - https://www.flickr.com/photos/fbancale/
original image - https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/47932740067_86e9ca0592_k.jpg
Another subject that I had trouble finding good photos of. Plenty of portraits, but the landscapes were lacking. I like the atmosphere of this one. The colors are right at the edge of being too sugary, still they are alright. However, this is a prime example of a photographer who doesn't know what the hell he's doing in Photoshop, and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it. For some reason, he didn't like something on this wonderful sea stack. A flock of seagulls? A bunch of suicidal tourists? That particular rock over there? I don't know, but whatever it was, he sure cloned the hell out of it. It’s horrible. Repeating patterns everywhere.
He also didn't like something about that cape in the background - perhaps its very regular layers? So he cloned that out too, using the sea stack as the source. The result was... a mess.
So, I restored all that. I lifted the stack and the cape off of another photo taken from the more-or-less same position, put that in, sorted out the colors and the contrast, and cleaned-up some weird blotches all over the sea, which I'm guessing were the result of indiscriminate dodging and burning. And there was a vignette there, of course. Luckily, it wasn't too bad. Out it went.
‘Evening with Poplars’ - Inner Mongolia region, China
photo by neko_ramen
website - https://www.reddit.com/user/neko_ramen
original image - https://i.redd.it/dnsa5283gb861.jpg
Clean and calming.
I removed an ugly vignette, replaced the moon with something cleaner, and fixed the general levels.
‘Red Sky at the 12 Apostles’ - Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, Australia
photo by Daniel Seßler
website - https://www.instagram.com/daniel.sessler/
original image - https://unsplash.com/photos/l-XiTqV2BkA
A nice atmospheric photo. The best thing about it is, of course, the red stripe in the sky.
There was a pretty bad vignette here that got removed, and I also increased the sharpness to bring out more detail.
Moonrise over Wasatch Mountain Range, Utah, USA
photo by Royce Bair
website - https://www.instagram.com/roycebairphoto/
original image - https://i.redd.it/d7ueykw490v71.jpg
Amazing moonrise, and a simple yet powerfull and atmospheric photo.
It did have a vignette that I cleaned up, and I didn't much care for the original blue color, so I made it darker and stronger.
