These are the Al Hassan and Al Rifa’i Mosques of Cairo in Egypt. The image was created from two separate exposures stitched together in Photoshop. A mask of the sky was made to add some blue however it clashed with the warm tones of the buildings. By changing the blend mode to Exclusion the blue sky layer added a soft brown which looked like a dust storm and balanced with the other colours in the image.

This jet surfer is a composite of four images. The desert dunes of western Egypt, A kite surfer from Dahab, The moon from an earlier post and a methane engine I found on this site. Unlike the last composite these images did not need as much adjustment as the lighting conditions were similar. The dunes did need their tonal range increasing. This was done by increasing the contrast to 100 and moving up the black point in Camera RAW. To compensate for the black point shift the Exposure also needed to be increased.

This was created by compositing three separate images. The Pyramids of Egypt, The Seas of Dahab and Rutland Water. Many adjustment layers and masks were needed in an attempt to balance the shot as each component was taken with different lighting conditions at different angles with different cameras in different countries.

This was taken in the Bahariya Desert in Western Egypt. Although I have spent the last three years using Photoshop to flatter the subjects of studio images some shots are beyond even my ability to make look pretty. The main problem with this image was where the sun had caught the white fur and blown the highlights. Fortunately I had a RAW copy of this image so I could get back most of the detail using the recovery slider in Camera RAW. This would not be possible if you shot in jpegs as you cannot change the exposure after you shot.

This is part of the ancient desert capital of Bahariya which is in present day central Egypt. The scene had a very wide range of tones and looked a little dull. In order to capture the detail one copy was processed using HDR. A second copy was processed using Camera RAW with some subtle Split Toning added to warm the light. The HDR copy is then imported onto a new layer in Photoshop. Its blend mode is set to Luminosity and 70% Opacity. By doing this you get the detail benefit from HDR without getting an unnatural look. A mask of the sky was made using the Color Range tool. The mask was applied to a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer so the sky could have its colour restored to a more saturated blue. A stamp layer was made by holding down Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E at the same time. The stamp layer is needed before applying Lens Correction or any general retouch as it stops you from having to repeat yourself on each effecting layer. If photoshop is running slowly you can flatten the image instead of creating a stamp layer. I try to avoid this as it can be useful to having the building blocks of the image on the layers under your stamp layer. Even though they no longer effect the image they can be called upon to make changes later by moving them to the top layer and adjusting the opacity.

This was taken near Luxor in Egypt. The image was processed using Photoshops Camera RAW developer. The effect was created using the inbuilt split toning feature in Camera RAW. You access the panel by clicking on the icon which looks like an = sign after you open your RAW file. It’s useful to know when adjusting the saturation slider it acts just like an opacity slider. You can blend it between original image colour and the hues you have set for the highlights and shadows. The balance slider is really a midpoint. It defines the crossover between highlight and shadow. In this case a warm hue was added to the highlights to give the effect of sunset. A subtle blue was added to the shadows. Finally a vignetting was added.

This was shot on the Nile in Egypt. Instead of using Split Toning Actions in Photoshop I used the split toning in Camera RAW. The advantage of this method is it gives you a lot of flexibility over the controls. Not only can you fine tune the Hue of the Highlights and Shadows you can also adjust the Saturation and Balance.

This sunrise was taken on a balloon flight over the west bank of the Nile near Luxor in Egypt. In order to compensate for the cameras White Balance Guess a colour balance layer was used to bring back the sunrise colours. An advantage of using this method is the Highlights, Midtones and Shadows can be adjusted individually. This means you can control the colours in the dark foreground and the bright sky separately.

This is Tahrir Square in Egypt. This part of Cairo saw the start of the Pro Democracy marches which ended Hosni Mubarak’s reign and started a chain reaction which is now sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East. When I took this image in 2007 I was spotted by someone in the government building on the right. A short while later I was politely asked to stop taking pictures. Hopefully the new regime will allow greater freedom for the Egyptian people.

This was taken from a balloon above Luxor in Egypt. Split Toning was used to create a number of layers. They were then blended back together using a varying opacity and blend modes.