Benz World Blog » Dahab

Jet Surfer

Jason Benz — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:07:54 +0000

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.

Dahab Boat

Jason Benz — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:40:07 +0000

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.

Wind Surfer

Jason Benz — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:07:08 +0000

This is another shot from Dahab in Egypt. The sun was in the wrong place to illuminate the surfer so I reduced the contrast with a curves layer then used a mask to boost the saturation of the surfer. I then reversed the mask to desaturating the background and adding a slight tint with a colour balance layer.

Sphinx Pool

Jason Benz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:15:02 +0000

This was our hotel pool in Dahab, Egypt. I used a tripod, a 30-second exposure and a small aperture to get the lights to sparkle. To process this image used a colour balance layer to make the pool a nicer shade of blue. I used a tone curve to boost the mid tones. Finally, I moved the black point in on a levels layer to make the sky jet black.