Retouch and Revisit

Camera Porn Photo Contest Entry Entry from Camera Porn Blog (dont worry its not porn!)

How I Did It Picture

So this was my thought process.

As others had stated, those huge fuel tanks just look so cool out there in the ocean. I wanted to accent those and the rock while giving it that dusk/sunset sort of feel. As much as I wanted to I didn't take the photo into photomatix and do an HDR with the bracket. Instead I only used the first two images of the bracketed shot. I felt like the third had to much detail lost in the highlights, so I didn't bother with it.

1. Sky is from the first bracket (-2) and rocks, fuel containers, water, etc. are from the second shot (0). Used smart objects with layer masks so I could go back and make some changes to the raw.
2. Did some spot healing on the sky and a little (very little) on the containers. I wasn't that worried about it. There is water there you know.
3. Dodge and burn to bring out detail in fuel containers, rocks, and water. I used a 50% gray layer set to overlay and then painted with a low opacity black or white to dodge and burn in a non-destructive way. Got that from Matt Kloskowski (and im sure he got it from somebody else too)
4. Converted to L.A.B. color mode and did a soft light adjustment for added contrast.
5. More dodge and burn to bring out the sky, front rocks, and containers more. LAB color changed some things and I wanted a little more attention to those areas.
6. Saturation and Contrast adjustment layers (I went overboard here). This is what took it from a regular picture to this. What I had originally was a much more natural looking photo, but I still didn't get that sunset feeling. This is why I ended up using these adjustment layers at the very end. .
7. Final sharpening and here is the finished deal.

Thanks for looking