Benz World Blog » Trinidad

Red Chevy

Jason Benz — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:49:10 +0000

This is a 1957 Chevrolet in Trinidad, Cuba. To process this image I used a similar technique as the Blue Chevy. Orton Effect on the car and desaturation and de-focus background. To add some extra sparkle I also added a subtle Fractalius layer.

Trinidad Sunset

Jason Benz — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:26:36 +0000

This shot was taken in Trinidad in Central Cuba. I used a levels layer to shift the black point. This ensures jet black silhouettes. I then used a Hue/Saturation layer to boost the colours to something closer to the original sunset. For more information about shooting sunsets read the shot notes in Stunning Sunset.

Cuba Pool

Jason Benz — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:40:57 +0000

This is my best selling photo from Cuba. Since submitting it to stock photography agencies in 2006 it has sold 98 times and made USD$35.65 so far. It almost did not get accepted at all. The original image had a great deal of speckle because it was not saved at the highest level of jpeg quality. You can see the uneven speckle patterns in the sky caused by lossy file compression.

I had to use so much noise reduction and despeckle that the image started to appear soft focused. Fortunately with this type of dreamy ideal holiday type shot a bit of soft focus does not look out of place. This image was accepted at Shutterstock and Dreamstime and can be downloaded here.