Benz World Blog » High Pass

Tree Roots

Jason Benz — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:24:12 +0000

I am not sure what type of tree this is. If you have any idea please leave your answers on a comment. I took this shot in the Botanic Park in Adelaide, South Australia. To process this image I used a 50% High Pass/Overlay layer to bring out some extra detail in the tree and leaves.

This image has been accepted for Stock Photography at Shutterstock and is available for download here.

Hawthorn Blossom

Jason Benz — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 06:22:09 +0000

This is the Hawthorn Blossom at the end of our garden in the UK. I tried to get the focal plane through the Stamen but is in front of the petals. To emphasize the anther at the tips I needed to increase the mid range contrast. This can be done with the clarity slider in Camera RAW or In Photoshop by using a high pass layer set to overlay blend mode. I never realized these two methods use the same technique until I read about it in this book. Thanks to Fliss and Alex for the birthday present. In this example I imported the image as a smart object. This means you can edit the RAW camera data in Photoshop and you reduce the chance of degrading the image. In this example I used a smart filter also which allows you to go back and change settings after they have been applied.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Liberation Square

Jason Benz — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:35:08 +0000

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.

Jerash Arches

Jason Benz — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:51:41 +0000

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.

Nile Skyline

Jason Benz — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 11:07:03 +0000

This is the Nile skyline in Egypt. To create some extra sparkle you can use a high pass layer set to hard light blend mode. Sharpening also works well to make the lights stand out. It works best if you sharpen at the very end of the process, after you have resized. If you sharpen an images at full resolution the effect will be reduced once you resize to a low resolution needed for web output.

The High Resolution version of this image was accepted at Shutterstock in a surprisingly fast 7hrs.

Petra Siq

Jason Benz — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:12:24 +0000

This is the siq on the way to the Treasury in Jordan. To process this image I used Photomatix to produce an HDR image. I then layered the HDR with copies of the original image using various blending modes. I then used the clone tool to remove the area where the sun light had blown the highlights.

Sunset Trees

Jason Benz — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:16:28 +0000

These trees were taken on the side of the road along the Hambleton peninsula. The panel below shows the layers used to develop the image.