This is Jerash in Jordan. The ancient Roman race track once used by chariots played host to BBC’s Top Gear in their 2010 Christmas special through the Middle East. The sky is blended in from this image in Egypt. To blend it in a solid colour layer with a mask to blank out the stonework was used. The blend mode is set to color.

I know this has been done before but I decided it was time for my take on this classic piece of digital art. Like Future World I used an image of the world in the public domain. This time showing the Pacific as I thought it would blend into the blue of my left eye. My aim was to make it look as realistic as possible despite the unrealistic concept.

This is Dahab in Egypt.  To process this image I applied a separate curve for the sky and the sea. I wanted to add some vignette so I created a new layer with a Radial Gradient Fill and set the blend mode to Overlay. This darkened the edges nicely but it put the focus in the middle of the shot and not on the subject. To fix this I adapted the Radial Gradient Fill Layer. I used a soft brush set to 3% and painted black or white as on the layer as if it was a mask. Finally I used a bit of split toning to add some more colour.

These are the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Lightening is hard to shot during the day. You need a very long shutter speed to stand a chance of catching a strike. But when you point at the sky it does not take long to overexpose even with the smallest aperture. This shot was taken through the window of a moving bus so I relied on this technique to get my lightening.

Since posting this image has been accepted for stock.

If you look closely I’m the one in the white T shirt. I took this shot of the Oakham Parade in Rutland. To process this image I did my normal trick of selective desaturation to draw the eye to the coloured area. I then did a similar thing with focus. I created an extra blurred layer and added a mask to it. By painting on the mask you effectively paint the focus back into the image in the areas you want it. The Reflection needed a different exposure from the rest of the image so I applied inverse masks to two curves and adjusted them to look how I wanted.

This was taken in Cuba. This building is typical of the design and condition of houses in Havana. I like this shot as despite being taken with an early digital compact camera it had a natural HDR look about it even before I started work on it. To process this image I started be removing the cables in front of the building with the Spot Healing Brush Tool set to Content-Aware. I then added Vignette, Viberence, Selective De-saturation and the Orton Effect. Then I gently lifted the pastel shades of the buildings using individual channel curves. I tried to submit this image for stock but it was rejected by Shutterstock and Dreamstime for copyright. I guess Art-Deco buildings count as Art.

This planet was made from a panorama of a salt lake in the Bahariya Desert in Egypt. I set up the tripod on the shore line which is why the resultant globe is bisected in the way. There was a lot of banding between the 20 images when stitched together. I used Photoshop CS5′s new feature Content Aware Fill to remove the planet so I could smooth the sky to the horizon without contaminating it with blurred planet. This is an easy way to remove banding from sky but it does not work on the sand as you would lose texture. Read this to find out how to make your own planet.

This is Llyn Lldaw on the way down from the Snowdon Peak in Wales. To process the image I used Vibrance instead of Saturation to bring the colour out of the bleak landscape. I then used various masks and adjustment layers add a bit more drama to each area of the image. High Resolution image is available here.

I remember thinking this Shetland Pony was carrying a little extra weight. The mystery was solved when she introduced this new foal to us. To process this pair of images I used 3 adjustment layers to make the images match. I then added one more curve layer to bring out some detail in their dark faces.

This shot of the White Desert in Egypt has become my fifth Enhanced License sale.  The original image had a very narrow tonal range giving it a dull greyish look. It is situations like this where it helps to shot in RAW.

If your camera saves jpegs or any 8-bit format the tonal range will start to exhibit banding when you apply a Tone-Curve to fix the image. This banding results in the image breaking up and in extreme cases giving an old poster look.

By shooting in RAW you record more data. In my case 12-bit. This means you can stretch the tonal range over the full 8-bit range without losing the nice smooth gradients between tones.

Both images are available at Shutterstock. Original Image / RAW Curved Image